


Reanimate Bone, Celestial Bronze, Stygian Iron

by Itty_Bitty_Albatross



Series: Reanimate Bone. [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Damaged Percy, Depression, Healing, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-01-09 04:14:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 28
Words: 89,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itty_Bitty_Albatross/pseuds/Itty_Bitty_Albatross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Percy loses an arm to a monster, which acts as a catalyst for a changed life. Hurt, self-discovery, depression, and healing. Eventual Pernico. Rated Mature for dark themes, talk of suicide, violence and possible slash. We'll see.</p><p>Sequel: 'Reanimate Bone, Two Warriors: Salvation.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Light Would Have Been Quite Helpful

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus, or any related characters.  
> 

Chapter 1: Light Would Have Been Quite Helpful.

 

 _‘Surely, surely, this is not how I_ _’_ _m going to die,_ _’_ Percy Jackson begged, as he battled the drakon.  It didn’t seem right that he should live through so much—the First prophecy and a war against the Titans, the second prophecy and a war against Gaea, and a trip through Tartarus itself—only to die in his pajamas, fighting a runt lizard. 

He had woken up that morning, poured cereal for himself, called Annabeth to see if she wanted to hang out—but he hadn’t had any inkling of impending doom. 

His world was awash in sensation. There was a burn across his left flank and scrapes on both knees.  Everything around him was almost-dark—the almost-dark of early morning when sane, mortal people would be in bed. 

All Percy could make out through the gloom was the occasional flash of scales and darting figures. The sounds, on the other hand, were overwhelming.  His own rapid, harsh breathing was the forefront, followed closely by the battle cries of Annabeth and Hazel, dodging the sharp-toothed and scaly beast. The snuffles and crinkling, scaly sounds of the drakon filled the empty space. 

“How did Clarisse ever kill that thing?” Percy marveled begrudgingly to no one in particular, dodging a spiky tail that swung right where his head had been.

“We need light!” Annabeth said from somewhere off to his left. She was alive, and that was good news.

“We need backup!” Percy yelled back. They could call Leo or Frank, anyone to give them the slightest edge of an advantage.

“I have an idea!” Hazel yelled, all hoarse-voiced and desperate sounding.  “There’s something sharp and metal, beneath the thing!”

“Do it!”  Annabeth prompted. 

Percy was lost; he had no idea what the plan was.  If Annabeth approved, it would have to work, and he would have to trust. 

His eyes darted back and forth, trying to see _anything,_ to no avail.  He shook slightly as the ground under his feet rumbled, then a sound of shrieking metal drove into his ears like a dagger.  He clapped his hands over his ears, dropping Riptide onto the ground with a muffled ‘clank’.  There was a thick sound, a cut off roar, and a ground-shaking impact that wobbled the earth. 

Hazel had impaled it on a metal from underground.

“Is it dead?”  Percy hesitantly stepped forward.  He needed to know, but couldn’t see anything but a limp, hulking shape.

Then his life ripped sideways.

“Percy!” both girls shrieked at once.

His world exploded into a tidal wave of agony.  All senses other than touch vanished, eclipsed by the sheer volume of hurt.  The pain was radiating out, ripples of unyielding fire; one part of his brain recognized that something was very wrong with his arm, but the rest of it was screaming that he needed an anchor, like in the Styx—someone…anyone…but the screaming fell silent as darkness finally, blessedly, swallowed him.

 

When consciousness dragged him back from the darkness, he wanted to cry.  The only reason he didn’t was because he wasn’t quite awake—the world was muted, and he was separate to what was going on around him.  It was like he was trapped behind a veil. There were people on the other side, but there was pain there also, so he was happy to let his mind wander about on this side.  The first place it wandered, or ran straight to, was to the pain.

 

The last time he had felt a pain like this, he had bathed in the river Styx. 

This time, there was no drive. The pain was useless. In the Styx, he had known he was doing this for his family, the other half-bloods, and that kept him going. He had walked into the river knowing it would hurt, walking because he would always make that choice. If he had to suffer to save them, he would gladly take any measure of pain. 

This time, hurting like this wouldn’t—couldn’t—help anyone. 

Last time, Annabeth had saved him, like she always would. 

Mind vaguely stumbling, he tried to remember her saying that, however long ago that had been. A lifetime.

“Percy,” she had chided gently, when he once again came home injured from a fight.  He was always doing that now, without the blessing of Achilles. She was binding up his ribs, which were probably broken, and he asked why. 

Why? he had questioned, uncomprehending. Why did Annabeth follow him all those years ago, on the slight promise that he was important?  Why did she risk her life for his, over and over again?

Percy, I love you, she had said around a mouthful of safety pins.  Seaweed brain, she called him.

I love you too, he whispered. He’d stilled her hand as she wrapped the bandages, and tried to find the courage to look her in the eyes, and say what needed saying.  Maybe the force that broke his ribs knocked his heart loose, as well. She spit the safety pins into her other palm so she could speak. 

I know, she had said soothingly. She had brushed his overlong hair back and gone back to wrapping. 

Later, they had talked about the obvious. There was a lot of breaking of dishes and hearts when they finally had to admit that loving each other wasn’t the same as being in love with each other any more. 

He was her hero. He belonged to her, in the same way he belonged to all the campers, except more so.  She had pushed him up on the pedestal he had led people to victory on.  He knew that, and knew he could _never_ forget that. 

Every time he saw the color grey, he thought of her stormy, thinking eyes. She had woven herself so entirely into his life, his being, that she couldn’t be unwoven.  They loved each other. 

But after the wars and the losses, Percy realized.  Demigods like them didn’t get the happy stories of long loves, and maybe he didn’t want one.

The love Percy had for Annabeth had never been the center of their relationship.  His love for her—his best friend—was a softer love, a relentless one. It would always be there and it would always be the ground upon which he built other relationships.

But he wasn’t in love with Annabeth Chase.

I’m not in love with you, he had said.  He barely got the words out, as she wound fabric around his torso.  She never even broke pace, never hesitated. 

I know—that’s the point, Percy, she said back.  She pressed a kiss to his forehead and dropped ibuprofen into his palm. 

Thinking of Annabeth soothed his pain, as always. He was lucky, in that.

He was always lucky. He’d lived when person after person around him had died: Bianca, Beckendorf, Selina, Luke, Jason.

He had seen the terror of monsters, and the deeper, more vibrant terror of losing your own mind.

It was accepted by then that all those who had survived the war had been driven crazy.  Some of them hid it better than others. Those that weren’t crazy were those that had died. 

The rambling thoughts of his crazed mind deteriorated into murky sleep. 

 

At some point, subconscious Percy must have decided he ought to wake up.  At least, he’d say he decided to wake up, because someone slapped him and he needed to preserve some dignity.  He dragged his eyelids open. 

The world slowly came into focus. Blindingly bright light burned into his eyes. He shut them again, tight as a solid black wall.   

“No.  I need you to stay conscious for a minute.” 

Percy didn’t recognize the voice. It was rough and commanding and sounded worried.  Percy had just decided he didn’t really care for this place right now, and was trying to go back to whatever comfortable, blacked out place he had come from when another slap of pain hit his face, this time on the right side.

“Nico, stop!”  Hazel, he identified; that was Hazel’s shrill voice.

 _She said Nico,_ he realized. _She took me to Nico._

“I can’t. He can’t black out right now, he needs to stay conscious.”  Percy, who was still strung out on adrenaline, somehow made the connection that it was Nico who was speaking.  And, that it was Nico who had slapped him.  Dick.

Someone gently pried his eyelid open. He focused in on Hazel’s golden eyes, swimming and shimmering above him. 

“Hey, Percy.”

“Hey.”  He managed.  Gods, it hurt to talk.

“Nico’s going to fix you up. Are you hurting?”

“Like hell.”

“I’m so sorry. Annabeth and I are both okay.” She added, before he had to ask.

“What hap’nd.” He slurred, and then gasped as a razor-sharp pain filtered through whatever pain killer he’d been given. He tried to tilt his head to see, but Hazel grabbed his chin firmly and kept his face anchored where it was.

“The drakon got in one good bite before it died.  I’m sorry, I should’ve told you it wasn’t dead yet.”  She looked terrified and he could tell she was blaming herself. He shook his head as much as he could, between being weak as a newborn kitten and her grip on his jaw.

“Why are we here?” Percy murmured, barely moving his lips.

“Nico understands medical stuff better than anyone else.”  That didn’t seem right, somehow.  It seemed wrong that the lord of death’s son was saving people’s lives.

“How bad?”  Percy saw the fear in her eyes as she flickered them over to his left, presumably at her brother. 

“Nothing we’re not fixing.” Nico’s face came into view and gave an encouraging—and slightly creepy—smile.

“Yay.”  Percy closed his eyes, only to have another searing pain in his shoulder tear them open again.  “Gods!” He yelped, trying to sit up, only to have Hazel push down on his right shoulder and anchor him to the bed.

“Percy, you need to _stay down_.” She insisted.  His breathing picked up.  That wasn’t right, something was wrong, something was missing, that wasn’t _right_ …

“Percy, don’t panic.” Nico’s face swam above him—eyebrows knitted, his words nonetheless seemed to help. 

“Easy for you to say.”

“Hazel, can you—” Nico started.

“Yeah, yeah.”  There was a rustling sound on the ground and Hazel’s fingers, painted with glittery gold polish, appeared in front of him clenching a Drachma. Her other hand tightened on his chin carefully, and her gold-flecked fingers spun the shining gold coin around, like a dance.

“Can you watch the coin for me?”

Percy tried to nod but couldn’t seem to get the message to his neck muscles.  He watched the gold instead, watched the way it caught the dim light and flashed it back.  After a while his focus stopped being a dingy room and a lot of pain—instead it was a golden hand with a golden coin, dancing.

 

“We’re done for now.” Nico declared.

“Good.”  Percy murmered, eyes closed.  A hand tapped his forehead twice and he opened them. The ceiling looked the same as it had when he went down into what was now occurring to him to be a trance.

“You can sit up, Jackson. We need to talk.”

Percy slowly moved up, still feeling out-of-touch in his own body. Hazel guided him up with gentle hands and propped a pillow behind him, which seemed odd, because it was obvious now that he wasn’t a bed but on a floor.  Nico was quickly wiping down metal instruments and sliding them into a box, finger dexterously locking each one into place. 

Percy took a deep breath and looked at the damage. 

He knew when he realized he had given up the Blessing of Achilles that someday he would be hurt badly.

Knowing was not the same as seeing; he was not prepared for the icy pit in his stomach or the sudden dead, unable-to-think feeling in his head. 

“My arm’s gone.”  He announced dumbly.  The sound of his voice echoed through the room.

 


	2. Pomegrate Seeds

Previously—  
Knowing is not the same as seeing; he was not prepared for the icy pit in his stomach or the sudden dead, unable to think feeling in his head.  
“My arm’s gone.” He announced dumbly.

Hazel was crying. Her metallic eyes glittered and she wiped away her tears as soon as they fell, as if they were shameful. Nico looked scared. He kept pushing his hair out of his face and narrowing his eyes at Percy. Percy just felt empty.

“What now.” It wasn’t a question, because Percy already felt the answer. His job was done, the big bad guys were defeated, and now he couldn’t even fight. There wasn’t anything to do.

Hazel sniffled. “You just get better. That’s all you have to focus on.”

“Oh.” Percy leaned back and laughed. Then, he kept laughing. It took him a minute to realize he was getting hysterical. He couldn’t stop laughing. “Oh, I need to get better.” The laugh that followed that was dead, cruel, even to his ears.

“Hazel, would you go Iris-message Annabeth? Tell her Percy’s going to be staying for a while.” Nico instructed, his eyes never wavering from Percy’s.

She looked from Nico, who looked about 200% done, to Percy, who didn’t know how he looked but was willing to bet it wasn’t pretty. She opened her mouth only to close it again, and stood up. She walked around Percy, but paused on his other side. She pressed a kiss onto his forehead, taking him by surprise, before she slid from the room. She closed the door behind her.

“Perseus, I want you to listen to me.” Percy’s eyes snapped to Nico’s at the use of his full name. “Got your attention? Good.

“You are going to stay here for a while. I need to keep an eye on that arm, and frankly you aren’t in any state to be wandering around.”

“Why not?” Not that Percy knew why he was arguing; he just didn’t like being told what to do.

“You’re damaged, and I don’t just mean the arm. It’s going to take some getting used to, and it’d be best if you were away from all,” he waved his arm dismissively toward the ceiling, to indicate the world up above, “the stuff up there. Annabeth agrees.”

Well, that was that. If Annabeth agreed, surely it was the only available plan. That thought only had a slightly sarcastic undertone in Percy’s head, because he knew deep down it was probably true. One portion of Percy’s brain was thinking of all the losses he had to come to terms with, his arm being one huge one that he still hadn’t fully accepted. It seemed inconceivable that he could still be denying the loss in his heart and mind, as his nose itched and he tried to scratch it only to find that, hey, there’s a limb missing there and he’s going to have to get used to that. The other, less sane (ha.) portion of his brain was rocking in the corner in a tin foil hat, declaring that Percy had never needed time to recover from losses and certainly didn’t need any now.

“Annabeth said you should take some time. I volunteered this place, because it’s far away from other demigods, and monsters. We’re in hell, nobody will bother you.” Nico continued, absently drawing a pattern on the floor. He was sitting cross legged, with his back against the wall. Percy was still reclined in his spot on the floor, propped up with a pillow. He surveyed the room. It was small, concrete. It was clean, but still felt…tainted. Percy noted in a vague way that there was a lot of blood that had dried into the porous cement. That was his blood. He knew—had seen firsthand—how was hard it is to clean blood out of cement floors, even with lava like they used to use back at camp in his past life. Chances are Percy’s blood would always be imbedded in the floor here in hell, in a—

Where the heck were they?

“Where are we?” Percy was actually asking because he was interested this time. “And why isn’t Annabeth here?”

“We’re in one of my buildings, on the banks of the Styx. Even if you can’t control it and really shouldn’t, I think being near water might help. Annabeth is safer above than down here.”

“Good, then. Water should help, I think. As long as I don’t have to get in again.”

Nico’s laugh was morbid and unsettling. “No, and I wouldn’t let you get in again, I don’t think.”

That response made Percy look at Nico, hard. He looked both alike and unlike the Nico Di Angelo that Percy remembered. He was taller, stronger looking. His clothes were a similar, if not the same, pair of jeans and dark shirt. The skull ring, the black sword of death, the haunted look: it all screamed of the same Nico. The way he held himself was what was different. He wasn’t shy, or scared looking now. He looked like he was in his domain. The last time Percy had seem him like this, he had declared himself the ‘Ghost King’.

To be fair, though, Percy hadn’t seen a lot of Nico after the wars. Percy had thrown himself into repairing the camps, ignoring the existential crisis of ‘I’ve finished the prophecies, now what do I do with my life?’, and spent spare time killing monsters that cropped up around. Nico had fought as hard as anyone in the wars, stood watch over Jason while he died, declared he would kill anyone who hurt Hazel, and vanished into the shadows. Hazel had mentioned once that he had become a commander of sorts for Hades’ army.

“Hazel said you’re in charge of a lot of dead people.” Percy blurted into the silence and then cringed at his own awkward wording.

“Hazel said right. I am in charge of a lot of dead people.”

“I guess Hades trusts you now, then?” Percy didn’t even know why he was pushing on what he knew, he knew, was a sore subject. Maybe he wanted to deflect attention off of himself, and the fact that he knew very little of what was happening in Nico’s life now. Plus, he may have been a bit bitter by the fact that Nico once turned Percy over to Hades, even if he didn’t know Hades’ plan when he did it.

“No. Dad and I don’t “trust” each other. It’s respect on his part, because I can strategize and I’m a little maniacal. I respect him because he’s a god, and I like not being turned to ash.”

“That’s cool.”

“Hm.” Nico hummed, and eyed Percy from tousled head to muddy feet. “Feel up to taking a walk?”

Percy’s pride said yes, but his body yelled no. The obvious winner had him wincing and trudging alongside Nico a few minutes later.

“We aren’t going far.” He promised. Sure enough, he led Percy out the doorway Hazel had left and to the right, down a hall light by little glow-y stones, and into the room at the end of the hall. In the room there were a number of the glow-y rocks, a small bed, and a small dresser and stand. Nico pointed to the bed and said

“Sleep if you’d like.”

“Thanks.” Percy patted his jeans pocket and went, if possible, a little bit weaker. The expression must have shown on his face because Nico quickly told him that Riptide had come back to his jacket pocket, but the jacket was in the dresser, along with another shirt, as they’d had to rip his to get to his arm. “Thanks.” Percy breathed, a little more sincerely.

Nico shrugged and left the room, saying “Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

Percy swept back the quilt, which was embroidered with little dancing skeletons and the souls of the damned, took a quick peek to see if Nico was kidding about bed bugs, then clambered in. He laid there for a moment, pointedly not thinking about the blood he had glimpsed on Nico’s forearms or the fact that it felt like his left hand was itching, despite no longer having a left hand to be itchy.

Phantom pain, Percy thought. He snorted to himself, at the irony of having phantom pain amongst ghosts.

 

Percy opened his eyes hours later. The room was still dim. It seemed that the underworld had one light setting: dim. It explained Nico’s paleness, anyway, although a pale Nico was still as dark as a tanned Percy. It must have been the Italian blood.

“Good morning, Sir Jackson.” A voice declared from the corner. Percy grabbed for his pen, realized it wasn’t there, grabbed for the other pocket with a cross body grab, and ended up falling off the bed. First impressions: bad. He normally never thought of himself as the savior of the world, except when he had done something embarrassing and felt he had failed ‘savior of the world’ standards. With the side of his face squished into the rug and one leg still on the bed, now was one of those times. He pushed himself up on his one remaining arm and let his leg drop off the bed, rolling onto his back.

The dead butler in the corner did not look impressed.

“Ah!” Percy yelled, further disturbing the complex he had been having. The skeleton looked vaguely disapproving, although how a bunch of bones in a suit can look disapproving, Percy wasn’t sure.

“Do you need help, sir?”

“No, I’ve got it.” Percy snapped, before proceeding to spend an unnecessary amount of time dragging himself back up. While Percy Jackson tried to get himself back into an upright position by use of both cabinet and Grateful Dead quilt, the skeleton spoke, utterly undisturbed by his cursing and flailing.

“Sir Di Angelo has requested I help you with anything you need for the next three days. He was called away on an unexpected job, but will be back the day after tomorrow. He says, and I quote, “Tell Percy not to leave, not to go swimming in any water source, and not to do anything Hazel wouldn’t do.”, unquote.”

The skeleton paused. Percy coughed out a laugh. It was worth noticing that Nico hadn’t said ‘don’t do anything I wouldn’t do’, which meant he recognized he was hardly an ideal example of exemplary behavior for people in the underworld. He also hadn’t said ‘don’t do anything Annabeth wouldn’t do’, which was a little harder for Percy to understand. It had to be because Hazel was a bit softer, more passive than Annabeth, and Nico wanted Percy to just be passive for three days.

He could do passive for three days, surely.

“How can I help you?” The dead man inquired politely.

“What’s your name?” Percy asked as he gingerly lay back on the bed, careful to avoid the pained area of his shoulder.

“I cannot recall. Sir Di Angelo always calls me Skeletor, or Jeeves, depending on his humor at the time.”

“What do you do, here? Are you like a butler?”

“In a way. I owe a hundred years of service to Sir Di Angelo, and he kindly decided to have me cleaning and doing maintenance, rather than sending me out on monster patrol.”

“Why?”

“I imagine he has a fondness for me. I’ve saved his life before, and Sir Di Angelo doesn’t like debts.”

“How’d you save his life?”

“Would you like me to show you the rest of this house and the yard?” Jeeves never missed a beat. He switched tracks quick enough to let Percy know that topic wasn’t up for discussion.

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

He led Percy back out of the room and down the hallway Percy recalled having followed Nico down. This time he noticed there were no other doors coming off the passage. They went back through the room that was Percy’s impromptu surgery platform, where he could still see the rough circle of red. They went through the doorway on the opposite side, which led to yet another hallway lined with radioactive-looking rock.

“What are those?” Percy pointed to one.

“Witch lights. They are not literally from witches, nor are they made of witches. They are merely rock that glows in the dark. Sir Di Angelo prefers them to conventional lighting, like lanterns, because they do not need electricity and there is less chance of fire.”

“You mean he likes the place to look creepy.” Percy deciphered.

“Precisely. He does have a flare for the dramatics.” Jeeves pointed out a bathroom to the left and suggested Percy take a shower. Percy accepted the towel Jeeves pulled out of a cabinet and stepped into the room.

The bathroom was small and circular, which struck him as odd. It was lit by several basketball-sized witch stones suspended from the ceiling by ropes. The floor was made up of concrete cut into blocks, leaving millimeters of space between each, probably for drainage. The shower was to Percy’s right, in a concrete alcove.

Percy locked the door behind him and tried to decide whether or not to remove the bandage. Deciding it would have to come off soon and he could properly clean it then, he left it on. There wasn’t much point to bleeding out the day after having it bandaged. Percy showered quickly and wrapped the towel around himself, shivering slightly. The bandage had held up very well under the streams of water—it felt like a plaster-fabric mix and, while it was wet, it wasn’t weakened or shifting out of place. Towel held in place securely with his right hand, he made his way back down both hallways to his rooms. There, he took the chance to get a good look at his arm for the first time.

There wasn’t even a stump. The arm had parted company from the rest of him right at the top, where the joint from the shoulder met the arm. He couldn’t see if the wound was bad or if the bone had splintered, because of the bandage that had been adhered to the spot. He recognized that the spot made a prosthetic practically impossible. Not that he had been hoping for one, as it wouldn’t help much with anything he needed to do.

He took a deep breath in, followed by a deep breath out. Panicking would do no good.

Getting dressed was an undertaking. Eventually he managed to get boxers and jeans on, but it involved a lot of tripping, hopping and swearing. The shirt was a bit easier: one arm through and it just slid the rest of the way on. It had short sleeves, so the left sleeve didn’t just flop around uselessly like it would’ve on a long sleeved shirt.

Percy just left his clothes folded up on the bathroom counter, where they would hopefully be taken care of. He entertained himself by imagining them being burnt.

That done, he stood in the middle of what was his bedroom for now, and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do with his life.

 

Twenty minutes later, he had come up with a list of objectives.

First—Visit the rivers nearby. Putting aside what Nico had said, because Nico wasn’t in charge of him, Percy wanted to know what the nearby rivers could do and where they ran. He knew of the Styx and what it could do, and had no interest in going through that again. He didn’t want that much pressure. He was somewhat familiar with the Lethe, because of the campers in Hypnos’s cabin. He was extremely used to the Phlegethon, which had kept him and Annabeth alive for so long in Tartarus. He knew that one ran through Hades as well, only less so than in Tartarus. There were two more, but he couldn’t recall them. It was possible Jeeves would tell him, if he asked nicely.

Second objective—he needed to contact camp. Rachel, the Oracle of Delphi, may have a prophecy for him. He needed some guidance as to what to do. He knew the Oracle was still giving kids quests like it always did, they just weren’t big, apocalyptic ones like the two Percy had had to confront with the others. Percy was very happy those days were over, but he craved another adventure, another mission. Rachel had called him a quest-addict, which was an apt enough term. For so long Percy’s movements had been aimed towards finishing a job, he was left without a proverbial finish line. Surely now, there would be a suggestion as to what Percy needed to do. There must be some job out there for one-armed demigods!

Third objective—Percy needed food. That one probably should have gone first, in retrospect. There were two major problems with this objective: he didn’t know where to find food, and Persephone. Persephone wasn’t the problem, exactly; the problem was that Persephone had eaten food of the underworld and had been stuck there. Here. Whatever. The point was, percy didn’t fancy being stuck in the underworld for the rest of his life, regardless of the fact that he didn’t know what he was going to do with the rest of his life. His plans didn’t so far include sitting in the underworld with the creepy kid of the death god, who was his cousin, now that he thought of it (gah, banish that thought! Percy’s head yelled), all because he ate the seeds of a pomegranate. He didn’t even know what a pomegranate tasted like, but it couldn’t be that good.

Food first, he decided, as his stomach growled its disapproval. He wandered back through the hallways, again, and out the end of the hall that contained the bathroom. That led him to a clearing full of fruit trees. There were probably a dozen trees there, and only half of those were in fruit. The fruit was red and round and Percy recognized them as pomegranates from carvings he’d seen. He was not going to eat anything here.

The grove was surrounded by a tall, metal fence. It was the kind of fence that you’d see around a haunted mansion. Percy turned around to see the house. It was concrete on the outside too, and small. He could see the house was shaped like two lines meeting at an angle, with a dot at the opposite side that must be his room, and the dot at the angle that must be the impromptu surgery room. He was at the end of the corner line.

Water was trickling nearby. Percy could hear the rushing sound, like when you put a seashell up to your ear. He walked past the stately, twisted trees across the cobbled ground. When he reached the fence, it struck him how tall it was. it was easily twice as tall as Percy, and he was six feet. Percy didn’t touch the fence, because it would have been just his luck that it was electrified. Istead, he peered through it from a foot away. Sure enough, there was a river: the Styx.

He would have recognized it anywhere.

He could hardly claim it brought back happy memories. It did give him a sense of pride, a kind of ‘hey, I survived that’ feeling. It was the same feeling he had at the end of the Titan war and the end of the War with Gaea. It was an odd feeling, bittersweet. It left his stomach turned in knots and his heart heavy, as if his heart itself had become weightier for being broken. He found himself fingering the bandage on his shoulder.

“Would Sir Jackson care for a meal?” Percy jumped about a foot in the air and spun around. Of course, it was Jeeves. It was disconcerting to look at him and not being able to meet his eyes, because, duh, he had none.

“Yes,” Percy said hesitantly.

“Fret not, it’s not food grown in Hades’ garden. Sir Di Angelo brought down saplings from a garden above, so they can be eaten without fear of enchainment down here.” His tone of voice suggested he knew what it was to be chained down here, and not be able to leave.

“In that case, yes.”

Percy took the tray from him. There was a glass jug of water, a sandwich on some dark bread, and a cup of pomegranate seeds. Percy stared at it for a moment, before sinking to the ground. Percy folded one of his legs under the other and balanced his tray on his legs, so that he could eat. Another thing on the checklist of things Percy could no longer do: eat standing up without a table.

Jeeves didn’t even look down, just kept on addressing the spot where Percy had been standing.

“I suggest you get some rest, Sir Jackson. You can leave your plate here when you are done.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘Sir’.”

“Thank you, Jackson.”

Percy decided that was not a battle he wanted to fight right then.

“Thanks.”

 

That was the system for the next two days. Percy wandered around, not going very close to any one river. Jeeves popped in at random times, giving Percy four meals a day and herding him back when he got too far. Percy grew to like the taste of pomegranate seeds, if the texture still threw him a little. He couldn’t get used to the bread, though.

After three days, his list of things he couldn’t do anymore grew to twenty seven items, then thirty seven, when he counted the things that weren’t a product of losing his arm.

It now included tying his shoes, sleeping in the dark, and asking for help.

Being a demigod was messed up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a quest coming in the next chapter. I’m not going to say whose quest it is. There’s some upcoming Pernico interaction of the tense variety on the horizon, as well. We will be seeing our great lady, Sally Jackson, at some point in the near future, if I get some responses. Otherwise, the story will end with a disturbed Percy hanging out with an indifferent Jeeves. Surely you don’t want that!


	3. Nightmares

Previously—  
After three days, his list of things he couldn’t do anymore grew to twenty seven items, then thirty seven, when he counted the things that weren’t a product of losing his arm.  
It now included tying his shoes, sleeping in the dark, and asking for help.  
Being a demigod was messed up.

 

Nico returned late that night. Per Percy’s request, Jeeves woke him up when he arrived. Percy had been planning for the past three days; collecting everything he wanted—needed—to say to Nico.

“We need to talk,” was the first thing that left his lips, as he tracked down Nico. Nico had his own house a short walk from Percy’s, upriver. The house was nearly identical to Percy’s (which was still technically Nico’s) in design, but where the blank, empty room Percy had dubbed the ‘surgery room’ was in his house, was a kitchenette in Nico’s.

“You cook?” Percy questioned, veering sharply off his pre-designated script of how this conversation would go.

“Occasionally.” Nico shrugged, turning down a radio on a shelf, but not turning it entirely off. You wanted to talk.” Nico prompted.

“Right. Right, so, I’m just going to get this out there, and then you can tell me what you think. Jeeves said that’d be the best way of going about this…”

“Percy.” Nico cut Percy off. He pushed a strand of dark hair out of his eyes and looked intently at him.

“I had a dream.”

Percy flashed back to the dream. It had started in a familiar place: Tartarus. His subconscious mind took him back there nearly every night. It was the reason he could no longer sleep in the total dark; he couldn’t stand to wake up from dreams of the dark to find it a reality. He figured that out in the first week of returning from the pit. He had woken up, back in his cabin, and when he was still shrouded in the dark he screamed and screamed until some of the remaining Ares kids had run in, armed to the teeth and expecting a fight. None of them had been mad when he sheepishly informed them he had been dreaming—they, as well as everyone else at camp, had been the frightened recipients of many nightmares. Alone he had been left. He hadn’t slept again that night. The next morning, he asked around until someone found him a little light, just enough to keep the room from being dark.

Despite Percy’s room here being faintly lit by the witch stones, the Tartarus dream found him again. He was kneeling in Hell, unable to move. He couldn’t see anyone. He was on the verge of panicking, thinking he’d be stuck there forever, when the dark spiraled up and around him, spiraling. There was a searing pain and he realized his arm had gone, again. Well, that sucks. Out of nowhere, his mother appeared, looking down on him pityingly.

“Percy, what’ve you done to yourself?” She chided. “You’re no use anymore.”

“No.” he gasped.

“Seaweed Brain, I knew this would happen!” Annabeth sprang out of nowhere, peering down at him knowingly. “I knew you’d do something stupid and put everyone in danger!”

“Please?” He pleaded, for her to stop, not say those things. His mom, his best friend, they were all turning against him and he knew they were right.

“Percy. You promised.” It was Nico, sliding out of the shadows to really drive the thumbnails of guilt in. “You promised you’d keep my sister safe, and you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.” Percy tried to say, eyes snatching from his mom’s disapproving eyes, to Annabeth’s judging ones, to Nico’s hurt eyes that looked so alike to the one’s he had when Percy had first come back to give the bad news (sorry, your sister’s dead. That’s a shame. Hope you like camp!). Then, Percy had left him be. Nico had been his responsibility—his, because Nico didn’t have anyone else—and Percy had left him. There had always been bigger fish to fry; there were Titan’s to defeat, Mother Earth to vanquish, and at the time, one lost demigod hadn’t been a priority in Percy’s mind.

“You lied.” Nico hissed on. “You. Always. Lie.” He punctuated each word with a step closer to Percy. Finally, only a foot away, Nico reached a hand out and shoved Percy, hard, to where he fell on the hard ground, legs buckling painfully.

Annabeth laughed, and her and his mom vanished.

“I’m sorry.” Percy repeated. He could feel the gritty ground beneath him, he could make out the faces of the two left near him but nothing else further. He couldn’t feel himself breathing. He couldn’t draw air. His hair was falling, damp, around his face, saturated with his nervous sweat.

Nico laughed darkly. “It’s too late for that.” Then he stepped fluidly into the shadows again and sifted away into the dark. Percy was alone, entirely alone, when the dream had ended. With a jolt like being hit with a battering ram he was aware he was back in the kitchen, and he really needed to talk to Nico about his dream.

“Percy?” The boy in question inquired softy. He was ducking his head down and to the side, trying to meet Percy’s vacant eyes. His voice sounded like he had been repeating Percy’s name for a while. There was still the soft, uneven murmuring of the radio in the background.

Percy nodded, acknowledging Nico’s calls and meeting his eyes. “Sorry, lost in thought.”

Nico nodded, in a manner of one who was used to being around people who randomly stopped responding to people and got lost in their own heads, mid-conversation.

“Do you hate me?” Percy blurted, before he let his nerve fail him.

Nico fell back against the counter, mouth agape in a comical ‘o’ shape. He blinked, twice, his obsidian eyes focusing on something on the floor before darting back up to Percy’s, like a trapped bird. Percy became suddenly aware of how shallow his own breath was, and of how taut his body was, like a spring coiled and waiting to snap at Nico’s command. His shoulder burned.

Nico took a deep breath in, held it, and let it out. “A little.” He answered. A moment later, he shook his shaggy head. “A lot.” He amended.

Percy nodded, feeling the tension drain out of him. That was not good, but . . . predictable? It was a reasonable reaction to the hurt he had inflicted on others, which wasn’t something Percy got much of. For the most part, people’s opinions of him were either that of hero-worship or loathing. Nico didn’t seem to fall into either of those, or maybe he was both, and they canceled each other out.

“Can I fix it?” Percy asked, and his voice broke slightly mid-sentence. He was shaking, his mouth dry. He didn’t want to know. He needed to know.

He needed to be able to fix something.

In the shredded existence that was his current life, all these sudden tears in the fabric of the plan he had woven for his own life, he needed to know he could sew one back together.

“I think so. Probably.” Nico looked at him sideways, unnervingly observant. It seemed to Percy that Nico could read him like a book, and could use that to break him down if the mood struck him. Percy found he didn’t really care, which led him to two possible conclusions: either he trusted Nico that much or he was already so broken it wouldn’t matter anymore. Both were, at the same time, depressing and uplifting.

“Why do you ask?” Nico asked, turning back to the counter where he stuck a couple pieces of bread in a toaster.

“Dream.” Percy reminded him, simply, and that was all Nico needed to hear.

“I’m not mad at you, though. Do you want some toast and honey?”

“You hate me, but you’re not mad at me? Yes, please.”

“Nope. I hate you because of lots of things. I’m not mad at you because you were trying to do what all of us try to do: survive. Besides, something’s happened that’s made everything a lot easier to deal with. How many slices do you want?”

“What happened, and how can I get that? Just one, thanks.”

“It’s a long story and you can’t, I’m afraid. Here you go.”

“I like long stories, and I haven’t got anywhere else to be. Thanks.”

They leaned against the counter and didn’t say anything for a few moments, munching on honey bread. Percy didn’t bother with a plate this time, but also didn’t sit down. Nico broke the silence first.

“I went for a swim in the wrong river. Well, it’s more of a spring, really. Have you ever heard of the Acheron?”

“It’s another river down here.” Percy racked his brains for anything.

“It is. You’ve got the Styx, which of course you are very familiar with—it’s the river of invincibility, and also of endings, in the figurative. Then you’ve got the Phlegethon, which moved to Tartarus a while ago, in all its flaming glory. The Cocytus is the river of lamentation and is a serious downer. The Lethe hasn’t been seen for years, but it’s the river of forgetfulness. The Acheron is the river of woe, but also of healing.”

“You took a dip in the river of woe?”

“Woe and healing. I was in a pretty bad state for a while, but the thing about confronting your woes is that you kind of have to heal. It’s not an option for you.”

“Why not?” It sounds good.”

“First—I should never have been there. I wasn’t planning to leave there having healed something. Second—the river vanished, like it should have. These rivers down here aren’t meant to be used by demigods. They’re far too powerful. It disappeared pretty soon after I left.”

“Weird.” Percy took it at that, but reminded himself to look into that.

“Weird.” Nico echoed back.

That was all that needed to be said on the matter then.

After several hours of talking about deep and shallow topics, Percy had finally filled in the blanks of his knowledge of what Nico had been up to for most of his life.

He was a leader of a faction of Hades’ army, specializing in strategy. It turns out that his long, long time in the Lotus Casino had been helpful here: thanks to Mythomagic and other similar games, he had a good mind for sneaky plans and direct attacks. Nico lived down in the Underworld most of the time, but also had small homes in both New York and Italy. He hedged around the topic, but from what Percy gathered he paid for both of them and visits them regularly to get away.

In exchange, Percy told Nico some stories from his childhood. Nico (along with nearly every demigod on the planet) knew about Percy’s life since the first Great Prophecy and the Titan War. Nobody had been interested in his less-magical childhood, until Nico. Again Percy got the feeling that Nico both hated and adored him, which seemed to make him Percy’s most valuable friend.

At what Percy presumed was nighttime they finally bid goodbye and turned in. Percy hadn’t had much by way of dinner but wasn’t hungry—he found his appetite wasn’t near as strong the past few days or so. Overall, it had been a fairly good day. He should have known the nightmares would be bad.

 

Tortured, hurt, useless, drowning, before finally waking up, heart pounding and breath coming in sharp, pained gasps.

“Oh, gods.” Percy repeated to himself over and over again, clawing across his chest in a three-fingered gesture he had picked up from Grover ages ago. It had become a habit to make it when feeling scared. The symbol had morphed from a superstitious gesture to a soothing one. It was odd, but his own scraping hand digging at his chest was calming. He ran his hand over his neck, as if to make sure he wasn’t choking, before sliding sideways to his shoulder. Thick, hard bandage met his intrepid fingertips.

A knock sounded at his doorway.

“Who is it?” Percy whispered it at first, then cleared his throat and tried again. There was no door, but from this angle he couldn’t see who it was. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Nico.” Nico didn’t wait for a reply, just walked in. “Jeeves told me you haven’t been sleeping well, and I heard you scream.” He announced, without preamble.

Percy closed his eyes and counted to three, reminding himself that Nico had never had a proper education in the polite manner of confronting bad sleepers. If there was a polite manner of confronting damaged people having screaming fits at night. Percy didn’t know if there was, but surely there should be.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.” He looked at Percy, and percy looked back. Nico walked over to one of the witch lights, as if to turn it off, and Percy made an involuntary noise. Nico paused, his hand hovering over the smooth rock.

“I can’t sleep in the dark.” Percy tried to say it casually, like ‘I don’t like broccoli’, but it sounded weak even to his ears.

“Sure.” Nico didn’t even twitch. It occurred to Percy that he wasn’t the only one in the room who had survived Tartarus a little worse for wear.

“I forget you went there too.” Percy said quietly. He scanned Nico, to see if he flinched or reacted. Nico shook his head, in a motion that didn’t seem right for Percy’s statement. He tapped a small rock, a pebble, next to the larger witch light. It started a soft humming sound, a white background noise.

“Scoot over.” Nico didn’t give any explanation for the stone, or the instruction. Percy didn’t need one. He was far too exhausted to overthink anything. When Nico slid into the bed next to him, making the mattress dip under his weight, Percy shifted to the side so there was no chance of his arm (what was left of it) being bumped.

“I just need a friend.” Nico offered, as if he thought Percy would be freaking out over this. Sharing a bed with a fellow hero, when you were being plagued by nightmares and afraid of the dark? Not even registering on Percy’s problem-o-meter. Any friend would do the same.

It was surprisingly easy to sleep that night. There were still nightmares, but none of the catastrophic size. There were a couple of times Percy could have sworn Nico was shaking next to him, but Percy remained silent. Brothers-in-arms.

Brothers-in-arms, Percy considered. I have a lot of those.

It was true. Percy didn’t have much by way of family; his mom was the only one to ever register in that capacity.

Friends, too, were a sticky subject. ‘Friends’ was too small a word for the people he felt affection for. There were too many other emotions connected to them besides ‘friendship’. Affection, love, loyalty, dedication, devotion, guilt, and connection swirled around in a soupy mess of emotion. Friendship didn’t cover the feeling of almost dying with someone.

Allies was a word for wars, and didn’t have the same squishy feeling.

But brothers- and sisters-in-arms?

It fit.

It took Percy much longer than it should have (it was honestly a faint niggle-y-feeling in the back of his brain as he drifted off) to realize that the ‘in-arms’ part implied the war wasn’t over.

‘That’s the whole point, Percy’, a voice in his head said. It sounded familiar, at one moment like Rachel’s strong, high, insisting tremor, at the next it was Jason’s calm, collected, stable tones. They were the two voices of reason that had been in his life. Rachel was still alive, if not accessible for chats anymore. Jason was slightly less living and wasn’t that a punch in the gut for Percy?

‘The war never ends.’ The voices continued. ‘You’re still fighting.’

‘Ain’t that the truth?’ Percy hummed back to the voices in his head.

 

The next morning Percy woke up alone. Jeeves stepped out of the corner and it was a testament to Percy’s skill at adapting that he didn’t even flinch when the skeleton came at him with a box-cutter.

“What’s that for?” Percy eyed the blade and the hollow eye sockets.

“I’m going to cut away your bandage, so that the wound can heal.”

When Jeeves was done, Percy got his first good look at the spot.

The skin gathered together in an ‘I’ shaped seam. The sutures were regular and small, if a little jagged at places. The skin was puckered and it made Percy’s stomach twist to see it.

He recalled, dimly, Rachel once talking about the stages of grief.

He had come back from the second war. They were playing air-hockey in some arcade on the East end.

Rachel was wearing a yellow sundress and a baseball hat that made Percy think of Annabeth and her Yankees cap. Rachel danced around her end of the table, moving to block Percy’s strikes. They’d started hanging out in public more often, now that Annabeth was going off to college and Rachel had gotten a handle on not spouting visions of death and destruction around mortals, which meant that the two found themselves hanging out at nearby arcades and malls, and moaning about how difficult it was to be normal.

“There are five stages to grief.” Rachel assured him. He had asked about how she had dealt with choosing to take the Oracle into herself. He hadn’t gotten a choice, not really, but she had chosen this life and he wanted to know how she dealt with the loss of a ‘normal’ life.

“Denial comes first, and it was the shortest stage for me. It’s hard to deny something when that something is using you as a channel for mystical visions. After that comes anger and bargaining. When you finally fall into a more ‘passive’ part, you get depressed. When the depression passes—and some people never get past that—you finally accept what happened and move on.

“I’ve accepted it. I’m the Oracle of Delphi, and I chose that fate.” She cursed when Percy managed to get a point past her. She laughed a moment later when she got a point of her own past Percy while he considered her words.

Sitting on his bed, after Jeeves left with the cut bits of bandage, Percy remembered and finally understood what Rachel had been saying.

He ran a finger over the stitches and winced at the tight crest of pain.

Stage one—denial. Check.

Stage two—anger. That was going to be more of a struggle, but Percy was used to struggles.

In a way, he needed a struggle. That was both his burden and blessing.

Percy needed a fight to feel alive, and there would always be one for him, but right now he needed a little bit more than a fight. He needed a battle, a war.

 

It wasn’t hard to find Nico, out on the flat ground beyond his house, running through drills with his dark sword. To Percy’s surprise, he had either found or made an identical sword out of carved bone, and he used the swords in weaving tandem, slashing at air.

“Nico, I want to go on a quest.”

Nico paused and lowered the blades alongside him to where the tips brushed grooves in the dirt. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Are my ideas ever good ones?” Percy countered. He knew it wasn’t a good idea. He was hoping it would help, anyway.

“I’m going with you.” Nico lowered one blade and lifted the other, the bone one, running a hand along the blade pensively.

“Why?”

“Are you really that stupid?”

“Apparently.” Percy mused.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter, then.” Nico ran his thumb along the ivory seam of the blade, testing to see if it was still sharp. Nico sounded resigned, like he had lost an argument against someone, possibly himself. Percy could see Nico was avoid answering, but didn’t press. He told himself he didn’t deserve an answer, not from Nico, and not like this.

“We’ll need a third member. We’ll need a prophecy, too. Are you sure you want to come along with me on this? I don’t even know what we’ll be doing.”

Nico laughed, and it was that maniacal laugh that reminded him of crazed people, whom Percy had seen plenty of over the years.

“I’m sure. Can you wait a few days? I need to take care of some things.”

“Like what?” Percy pressed. He was anxious, he needed something. He needed adrenaline, or pressure, something to get his blood moving. He needed to feel whole again, as unlikely as that was to ever happen. He needed to pretend he was whole again.

“That’s none of your business.” Nico snapped, snatching up his blades. Percy held his hand up in mock surrender.

“You have my apologies, your highness.” Percy joked. Humor was his go-to for dealing with tense situations, and he could use Nico on this quest.

“No, I apologize.” Nico said stiffly, testing the other blade. “Your highness?” He repeated back, incredulously.

“Well, you are the Ghost King, and the prince of the Underworld.”

Nico shook his head. “I’m no more royalty than you.”

“I like that thought. ‘Prince Percy’. It does have a certain ring.” Percy kidded. Nico wrinkled his nose but Percy saw his mouth turn up at the corners.

“When do we leave?” Percy asked, his tone turning serious again. He wished he knew why Nico got so touchy about seemingly innocuous topics. Then again, maybe it was best to leave his with his secrets.

“Let’s aim for the day after tomorrow. You’re leading, though, so you get to make all the visiting-the-Oracle plans.”

“Thanks.” Percy said sarcastically. He liked leading, but planning? He didn’t like that as much. Then, he considered his current predicament. “Seriously, thanks, Nico.”

“You’re welcome.” Nico swung his swords up onto either side of his head, resting them there on the flats of their blade.

The two walked together to side of the river before parting ways, Nico for his place and Percy for his.

Percy had plans to make, and a lot to consider. He brushed his hand along the pen in his pocket, a safety blanket of sorts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems I will be updating every five or six days or so. I am sorry this late, and not as long as I was planning—I was skiing, in the mountains. It’s surprisingly hard to write whilst soaring downhill on two hunks of fiberglass.  
> I know, excuses, excuses. Tobi, get your act together, you say, if there are any of you actually reading this.  
> If you are reading this, please read & review. Even if it’s just to tell me your thoughts while reading, or to relay a joke you heard from your friends earlier. If I had friends (*sad laughter in the background*) I wouldn’t have to beg you guys for responses.  
> Next update, we get a quest. Also, a run in with an old friend we haven’t seen in a while, a break-down, and an accident of a sensitive nature.  
> Tobi.


	4. Green Mist, Everywhere

Previously:  
The two walked together to side of the river before parting ways, Nico for his place and Percy for his.  
Percy had plans to make, and a lot to consider. He brushed his hands along the pen in his pocket, a safety blanket of sorts.

 

“Gods!” Percy exclaimed, dropping Riptide again. He was slashing at nothing—slashing at air, not even hitting anything, and he was still running out of steam. He was used to having another arm for balance, to help offset the sudden changes in weight as he swung the heavy sword. Without it his equilibrium was off, and he had to drop the sword or risk falling on it. he shook out his wrist and snatched up the well-worn handle again, pulling it around into his field of vision.

He’d had this sword for so long. He had fought the Minotaur with this sword, taken his first lessons with Luke with this sword. He took it—and his natural skill at sword fighting—for granted. Even when he had been out of practice, like when he’d been at school for nine months and hadn’t practiced, he’d still been better than most. He wasn’t like Annabeth or Nico, he wasn’t strategy—he was a warrior, a hero, at heart.

Not being able work his sword without fear of hurting himself took that away, and he was left grasping.

He glared at the sword.

“Why can’t you just work, huh?” He demanded from it. As predicted, it didn’t answer.

Percy swiped his upper arm over his forehead to keep sweat from dripping into his eyes. It seemed his power over water didn’t extend to sweat, because it wasn’t listening to him.

Percy sat down and stuck the sword pommel between his knees, so that he could use his hand to set the cap on the tip of the blade, turning it back into a ballpoint pen. It had taken him a while to figure out how to do that. Uncapping had been even harder, because he was hesitant to pull off the cap with his teeth and have a freaking huge blade pop up right next to his mouth. He didn’t need a surprise tonsillectomy.

Pen safely put away, Percy made a beeline for Nico’s house. As it was mid-afternoon, Nico would be sleeping. The guy had weird sleep patterns, Percy had noticed.

He would get up early, head off to some room in Hades’ palace, get back at noon, sleep for a few hours, get back up, go back to Hades’, go to bed early, get up in the middle of the night for a few hours, go back to sleep and start the cycle all over again.

For the past few nights Nico had dropped in at Percy’s in the middle of the night, and spent the last part sharing a bed before leaving for work. Percy still had nightmares, but Nico woke him the couple of times they got really bad. He returned the favor the one time Nico had woken him with his thrashing and struggling.

Percy had been struck in the side with a flailing arm and had heard Nico begging for something, and he had called Nico’s name while shaking his arm until Nico woke up, gasping. They didn’t speak of it, just as they didn’t speak of when Nico stopped Percy from continuing through his nightmares.

“Nico.” Percy tucked Riptide in his pocket and stretched out a hand to touch Nico’s shoulder. Percy had noticed that Nico always slept like this: curled up around his own self, one arm tucked under his head and the other clutching one of his knives, the Stygian Iron one. He was like a lithe, scared kitty in a batman shirt. Percy pulled his hand back slightly when Nico flinched at his touch, but went back and placed his palm on Nico’s shoulder and shook him. He stepped back quickly to avoid a knife to the gut. Nico almost came up swinging, but stopped the blade and growled at Percy.

Seriously, he growled, like a bear.

“Sorry.” Percy said, quite unapologetically. “When do you want to leave?”

Nico flopped back down onto the mattress, winced, and pulled the other knife, his bone one, out from under his pillow.

“Give me few minutes, to pack.” He ran a hand back through his shaggy hair and his mouth stretched open in a yawn, teeth flashing. Percy nodded and pushed Nico’s legs over a foot so he could sit down on the bed. Nico got up and set his swords next to Percy, giving him a ‘touch them and die’ look. As if Percy wanted to grab those sharp death-sticks.

Nico packed a few pairs of jeans and shirts in a backpack he pulled out from under his bed. He threw a towel on top, and threw in a skull off his bookshelf, as an afterthought. He plucked a thin, elastic-y harness off a hook on the wall while Percy watched him curiously. The harness went over the thinner boy’s head and snapped to his jeans in front on the left and back on the right, like half a pair of suspenders. Nico grabbed his swords and stacked them together, white on black, and slid them into the harness behind his right shoulder. He would have reach behind his head to grab them, like an archer reaching for a quiver, but they were easily accessible while being out of the way. Percy was impressed; he had never taken much time to consider how people whose swords didn’t turn into pens had to carry theirs around.

“What do mortals see?” Percy asked Nico, who had started to pack the smaller pockets on his back with little bottles and packages.

“I think they look like tennis rackets most of the time. Once, I think it was a flute.”

“Hm.” Percy responded, eyeing the long weapons. “When did you start fighting with two?”

“I’ve been able to use two for a while. It wasn’t until we got back from the second war that I switched over almost entirely.”

“Where’d you get the other sword?”

Nico shrugged. “I made it. It was a monster’s leg bone, originally—after I killed it, the bone was left as a trophy.”

Percy nodded. He was familiar with the trophies that monster’s left behind when you killed them.

“I took the bone, carved it out, and made myself another sword. Before that I had practiced with other’s swords, but…” he touched the stark white handle, “It’s not the same.”

Percy nodded again. He knew the feeling, that irreplaceable feeling of having your own sword, a weapon you can use and use well. It’s kind of, ‘Even if I have no home, no hope, no food and no sleep, I have this. It’s mine.’

It’s a form of pride.

 

They set off twenty minutes later, both carrying backpacks and walking upriver, heading towards the easiest spot for Nico to shadow-travel them both out of the Underworld. Apparently it’s minutely harder for Nico to shadow-travel out of the Underworld than to just shadow-travel in one plane to another place on that plane. Even that minute bit of energy is something Percy would rather Nico have, because his own battle-field skills are going through the wringer. At one point of the river that looks the same as every other spot to Percy, Nico told him to stop, curled a hand around his upper arm, and Percy dissolved into the darkness.

They reappeared on one of the tables, in the dining pavilion, at Camp Half-Blood. Percy gingerly lifted his foot out of the plate of a pudgy boy who looked shell-shocked.

Eyes everywhere were fixed on him and Nico, Percy scanning the crowd for a familiar face, Nico staring back at their stares, unintelligible and unreadable. For a moment, Percy was rocked with the sheer impossibility of it all—

These were new kids. He didn’t know most of them, had never had to fight with them. Chances were they went on quests; they battled it out in the sword-fighting area. Until recently Percy taught them, like Chiron had asked him to, but he hadn’t paid much attention to their names and faces.

All these kids had lost things, like he had, but they were happy and laughing and—had he not been standing on a table in the middle of the room—would have been munching their way through dinner.

Or lunch. He wasn’t really sure of the time.

“PERCY!” A voice yelled from the edge of the room. He whipped his head over there and Nico, belatedly, released his arm. A girl in an overlarge shirt and scribbled-on leggings made her way through the sea of faces and chairs.

“Rachel.” Percy breathed out, relieved at having found someone he knew.

She stood next to the table he was standing on and offered a hand to help him down. Rather than risking the treacherous climb down the side and the murderously-glaring kids, he walked down the length of the table and slipped off the end. Rachel met him at the end, with Nico, who had presumably risked the benches and campers.

Rachel reached out as if to grab his arm and steer him out, but only met air and then ribs. She flushed, spreading pink meeting the roots of her red hair, which she had put into cornrows.

“Come on, let’s go to my place!” She said brightly, bouncing back quickly. She started walking down, past the cabins. She turned around and started walking backwards, looking over Percy and then Nico.

“You couldn’t have picked a better place to pop in, could you?” She ribbed Nico good-naturedly.

Nico rubbed the back of his neck as if embarrassed, but smiled charmingly at her. She shook her head, seeing a lost cause.

Her cave was the least cave-ish cave Percy had ever seen. Sadly, he had seen a lot of caves in his days, and this one topped them all. He’d spent a lot of time hiding out in here between the lessons he gave, bunkered down with Rachel and Annabeth, even after they’d broken up. Rachel had cable and an awesome DVD collection, foosball, Ping-Pong, and ice hockey tables, and a fridge that magically replicated drinks.

Nico whistled when he stepped inside. “This is a nice place.” He said, eyeing the walls appreciatively.

“Thanks.” Rachel said absently. She sat down on the sofa and turned on Percy. “What are you doing here?”

“I need a quest.” Percy was determined to not let Rachel bully him into lying low for a while. Sure enough, the next ten minutes where comprised of her attempting to convince him to relax for a while, and him adamantly refusing.

“How long have you known me?” He argued. “I need a quest; I need to be helping in order to heal.” Rachel still looked doubtful. “Nico, back me up here.”

“He’s too used to being on a quest—he has enough things to acclimate to without cutting him off from them.” Nico applied some biased logic to the discussion, waving his hand at Percy’s arm.

Rachel grimaced. It seemed she was coming around to the idea. Before she said so, she fixed her eyes on Nico and narrowed them. She opened her mouth once and closed it again.

“Nico, I don’t think you get a say in ‘healthy healing processes.” She said cuttingly. Nico winced, as if she struck him.

“Wait, what?” Percy was lost. “Is this about his swim in the Avalon?”

“Acheron.” Nico corrected, at the same time Rachel exclaimed “He told you?”

“It’s no big deal.” Percy looked at the two of them. Rachel was looking hard at Percy, and Nico wasn’t meeting his eyes. “Is it?”

“No.” Nico insisted.

“Yes,” Rachel countered, “How much have you told him?” She turned on Nico, tilting her body in his direction.

“Enough.”

“What are you two talking about?” Percy demanded. He felt like he was hearing one half of a phone conversation, and he couldn’t fill in the blanks.

“Nothing.” They both insisted in unison.

“That’s not suspicious.” Percy muttered sarcastically. “Do I get a quest already?”

Rachel looked torn, eying her hands at her lap. “Yes.” She decided. She grabbed a notebook out from between the couch cushions and handed it to Percy with a pen. He balanced the notebook on his lap so he could write with his hand. Rachel leaned back, closed her emerald eyes, and opened her mouth.

The hair on the back of Percy’s neck stood up and he shuddered, and then shuddered again when green mist started winding through the room, coalescing on the couch, on his shoes, on the table. A croaky voice filled the room.

“Three shall see fear and see fear bereft,  
Two shall find the lost blade, and one shall be left.  
One will see reward and one will see pain,  
And three shall unite to lose it again.”

Percy barely got it all down, and he was pretty sure most of the words were misspelled (thanks, Dad, for the dyslexia), but he got most of it written.

“That was weird.” Nico commented.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Rachel said with a smirk, and the tension in the room dissipated. Percy could breathe freely again. Admittedly, he hadn’t known what the two were bumping heads over, but he hadn’t liked it.

He set the pen down and used his hand to toss the notebook onto the table. All three of them closed in on the table and peered down at it.

“What’s this word?” Rachel pointed one finger at a scribble on the lined paper.

“Uh, I think it’s ‘reward’.”

“That’s what I heard.” Nico said. Percy repeated the prophecy a few times in his head, ripped off the sheet and stuffed it into his pocket.

“There’s no point musing over it for too long.” Rachel murmured. She reached over and pulled the sheet out of Percy’s jean pocket, folded it properly, and slid it back in.

“It sounds like we need a third member.” Percy pointed out.

 

“You’re. Kidding. Me.” Thalia had been hard to track down, harder to contact, and Percy knew the real challenge of getting her to come with them wasn’t even near the end.

“We need you.” Nico piped up, from the floor of her tent. Wherever they were, it was cold. Nico had worn himself out getting him and Percy there, and was now stretched out on the ground, watching Thalia and Percy talking above his head. The way his eyes drooped, Percy guessed he was about to nod off.

“Why?” She questioned, yet again.

That was something even Percy wasn’t sure about. He didn’t fully understand why he needed her on his team: maybe because he needed someone he knew, maybe because it was fitting.

“All three of us,” he chirped brightly, waving his arm around, “the children of the Big Three, on a quest together!”

“What even is this quest? You have a prophecy, great. I’m not taking a break from hunting for no good reason.”

“We have an idea.” Percy offered tentatively. He flicked his eyes to Nico, who had fallen asleep.

“You do realize I’m a hunter now, not a camper.” Thalia said coldly. She was wearing a white shirt and white cargo pants, had a bow over her shoulder, and had tucked her short hair into a bandana under a tiara.

“That doesn’t matter.” Percy had checked with others before leaving camp. It didn’t matter if you were a hunter, camper, satyr, whatever—all that mattered was that you had a tie to the magical world, and were part god. Thalia fit the bill.

Thalia folded her arms and stared at Percy. He didn’t understand the emotion he saw in her eyes.

It was a mix of fear, pity, acceptance, and something else that was harder-edged. It was intimidating.

Thalia broke eye contact first, exhaling hard and rubbing her eyes.

“I’ll go, Percy. I’m in.” She said. He pumped a fist in the air exuberantly.

“Great. Thanks, Thalia.”

“Tell me what the prophecy.”

“Three shall see fear and see fear bereft, two shall find the lost blade, and one shall be left. One will see reward and one will see pain, and three shall unite to lose it again.” He recited. He had recited it to himself a hundred times before, racking his brains, and he thought he understood part of it.

Thalia wrinkled her nose. “That sounds troubling, Percy. It sounds like only one of us is going to make it out unharmed.”

“I noticed.” Percy said quietly. In truth, he had learned not to dwell on those things. People were lost on quests, even those that didn’t mention it in the prophecy. It was unavoidable, unpredictable, and inescapable.

Thalia nodded. “Tell me what you think you’ve figured out.”

Percy filled her in on what he had come up with that far.

He had talked to Chiron in an Iris-message, and while communication had been difficult (The “How are you doings” were especially turbulent), Percy had gathered something was gone.

Phobos, the god of fear, had lost something valuable. Percy remembered Phobos, faintly, from a quest he had gone on a long time ago with Clarisse. The guy was a jerk of extreme proportions. Phobos wouldn’t tell Chiron what was missing; he wanted a couple of demigods. Chiron hadn’t sent anyone yet, because no one had volunteered. After the wars volunteers had become rarer.

‘Three shall see fear and see fear bereft.’

Percy, Thalia, and Nico were going to see Phobos, the god of fear, who had lost something. It would be amusing to see Phobos in a state of distress. Percy wasn’t sure if deriving feelings of happiness from other’s distress was a bad sign, and didn’t really care.

“When can you be ready to go?” Percy asked Thalia.

“Give me a couple of hours, before we embark.”

“Sure thing.”

He could wait a few hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An explanation is in order.  
> This chapter was supposed to be longer, but it was TOO long, so I’ve cut it in half. The other half will be given tomorrow.  
> Also, Thalia! Let me know what you think about this, and feel free to give me some prompts for things you’d like to see. They may show up.  
> As always, guys, enjoy the weather and don’t get killed before the next update, I need you. Cool things will appear next chapter, like the break-down I promised, and a ‘discussion’ about what Nico and Rachel were hinting at.  
> Tobi.


	5. Long Road Haul

Previously:  
“Give me a couple of hours, before we embark.”  
“Sure thing.”  
He could wait a few hours.

  
They set out shortly after that. The three of them, Thalia, Nico, and Percy each had a backpack, a weapon, and the clothes on their backs.

The three got on a bus and planned out what buses they’d have to take to get to their destination. Phobos had told Chiron that he’d be waiting in Minnesota. Why the God of fear was living in Minnesota was beyond Percy’s understanding, but stranger things had happened. Percy had learned to take things at face value.

So, three of the most powerful demigods of the age found themselves packed like sardines into one bus bench, backpacks between feet, the rest of the bus taken up with random businesspeople and what looked like a bingo club of seniors. Thalia had called dibs on being closest to the door and glared daggers at Percy when he went to put his arm over her shoulder, purely to make more room. As it was, Nico’s elbow was jutting into his left side and Thalia’s arrows into his right. Nico kept leaning away, to the side, to avoid hitting Percy’s still-sore shoulder, which Percy found both infuriating and quite nice, which made it all the more infuriating.

The conversation was stilted and uncomfortable, inquiries about the weather and mutual acquaintances and recent undertakings.

Thalia informed them that she’d been hunting down a giant in the Rockies. Her second-in-command hadn’t been happy about her leaving for a while, but had seemed to understand. That didn’t stop the girl, Clara, from looking at Percy and Nico like she wanted to fire arrows at their knees.

They rode that bus until the last stop, where they switched to a different one and rode that for a while. By then it was nearly midnight, and by popular vote (Percy and Thalia against Nico), they agreed to stop and get a hotel room for the night and get a fresh start in the morning. Otherwise, they’d be traveling all night and most of the next day to get to Phobos, and have to start the real part of the quest exhausted.  


Backpacks in hand and weapons stashed, the trio stepped into the hotel lobby, weary. Nico took the bags and stood by the back wall, keeping a look out for monsters or nosy people. Percy and Thalia approached the counter to speak to the young lady working there.

“Can I help you?” She inquired politely. Her eyes hovered on Percy’s arm—or, no arm—but snapped back up to his face just as fast, smile frozen.

“Yes, we need a room. Two beds.” Percy smiled back; choosing to ignore the lady’s fleeting glances. He caught Thalia’s sudden head turn out of the corner of his eye.

“Two?” She repeated incredulously.

“Two.” He firmly said. He knew that he and Nico would end up sharing anyway; why pay for a third?

Thalia furrowed her brow but didn’t say anything. When the time came to pay, she snapped her fingers twice, and Percy saw the veil of the Mist fall into place around them. The woman tapped a couple keys.

“Thank you.” The lady smiled again, nodding her head and making the hair piled atop her head sway precariously. She handed them two key cards and pointed down the hall.

“That’s handy.” Percy muttered under his breath to Thalia as they walked away.

“No kidding.” She grinned, giving him a lingering glance.

After retrieving Nico, who had been distracted by a fish tank and somehow gotten wedged between the tank of water and the wall, they headed down the hall. Up a flight of stairs and back down the hall, they found their room: 221.

“This is nice.” Nico said appreciatively when they stepped inside and flipped the lights on. It was small, and the painting hanging on the wall was frankly horrific, but it was a lot nicer than most of the places Percy had stayed on before. Trailers with zoo animals leapt to mind first. Nico tossed down the bags and flopped himself on the farthest bed, groaning.

“Who’s sleeping where?” Thalia asked.

“I assumed you’d want the one closest to the door.” Percy motioned toward said door. “Me and Nico will take the other.”

“Hmm.” Thalia said ambiguously.

“Shower!” Nico declared, rolling off the edge of the bed and hitting the ground with a ‘thump’. He headed off to the bathroom without another word.

“So how long have you two been…?” Thalia trailed off, motioning towards the bed Nico had just vacated.

“Since my arm bit it. Or, should I say, got bit.” Percy laughed a bit at his own wit, twisted and pitiful may it be.

“You and Annabeth broke up, right?” she looked at him darkly.

“What? Yes, but why would that matter?” He looked at her, bemused. They both looked at each other, equally confused, until something must have clicked in both skulls.

“Wait, you thought—“

“You guys aren’t—“

Both stopped talking and looked at each other, then at the bathroom, where they could hear the water running in the shower.

“It’s just sleeping. Honest.” Percy didn’t know why he was defending himself to her, other than the fact that he had always been somewhat responsible for Nico, and Thalia knew that better than anyone.

“Okay, then. It doesn’t matter, to me.” She insisted, still giving him that look that said she knew him a lot better than he thought she did. She wrinkled her nose up a bit. “Although, isn’t that practically incest?”

Percy snorted. “We’re Greek. It’d hardly be the most incestuous thing we’ve done.”

She gave a little half-shrug, like, ‘that’s true.’

“Nico?” Percy asked her, picking up the original thought again. “You think…?” He didn’t finish the sentence, knowing she’d get what he was getting at.

“I think so.” She said slowly. “He’s never been interested in girls, has he?”

Percy considered it, and then slid it into his mental ‘Nico di Angelo’ folder. Oddly—or maybe not so oddly—Nico being gay wouldn’t be a big dent in Percy’s mental sheet.

“Have you seen he fights with two swords, now?” Percy declared, still being stuck in his mental folder.

“No, I didn’t know that.” Thalia paused for a long moment. It wouldn’t have been weird, except she also stopped digging through her bag. It was as if she was weighing options in her mind, and Percy was almost certain she was.

“How’s your fighting, now?” She said slowly. Apparently the curious side of her won out in that battle in her head.

“It sucks.” There was no point lying, was there? Thalia would know, Thalia would see. “At least I’m still hella powerful.” He tacked on the end. That he was.

Thalia threw back her dark head and laughed, teeth catching the light of the overhead. “That you are, Percy; that you are.”

 

  
Morning came too soon and too early, dragging them out of bed to get dressed. Percy knew he didn’t get near enough sleep, having been woken up twice by bad dreams and once by Nico, who’d been thrashing and making soft pleading noises. As it was Percy’s good dreams were lukewarm at best and featured a lot of running. Percy knew it was likely that the others had had the same trouble.

Curse of the super-strong demigods: you got wicked powers and were never bored, but you lost a lot of the people you cared about and you sacrificed a good night’s sleep.

‘And a good meal’, Percy added, as he grabbed a couple of waffles from the continental breakfast line and lead the others out of the hotel, back to the grind. He wolfed the waffles at the bus stop. Thalia had been healthy and grabbed an apple and an orange, and was efficiently peeling the orange, having already eaten the apple and thrown the core in a trash can. Nico had a banana stuffed in his back pocket and a tall to-go cup of coffee, and had been slowly sucking down the drink like it was liquid gold.

Three buses and eight hours later, Percy was standing on a street in a small town in Minnesota. Cartographically speaking, Percy had no idea where they were, other than near a lake. He fished the sticky note with Phobos’ address out of his pocket, trying to avoid touching the tacky, gritty back.

‘651 Frite Street, Kelwinchester, Minnesota.” Percy read aloud. He took a double glance at the yellow square.

“Dude lives on ‘Frite Street’?” Percy repeated, unbelieving. “That’s no coincidence.”

“Of course not. He probably lives on that street for the name.” Thalia snapped.

“Do coincidences even exist?” Nico mused, like he was talking to himself.

“No.” Percy and Thalia both said together.

 

  
“Niiiccce.” Percy drawled, looking up at their destination. The house must have been nice, once upon a time—a cute little one-floor home, but presently it was in a total state of disarray. Clearly nobody had mowed the lawn in a long time, two of the windows had been smashed in, and the mailbox was crooked, like it’d been hit.

A familiar face poked out of one of those broken windows.

“If you guys are the heroes I’ve been sent, come on in!”

“Is the path safe to walk on?” Thalia yelled back, as Percy eyed the cracked, busted sidewalk and overgrown lawn.

“Nothing’s safe!” The voice inside the house yelled out.

“Good point.” Percy conceded. He led the way up the path, keeping his gaze fixed on the house and letting the others watch the back and flanks. They’d all been through the basic camp training—they knew the drill.

Phobos was a lot like Percy remembered. He’d aged a few years, from the age of a high school kid to the age of a college student. He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket, and sunglasses indoors, something Percy normally would have made fun of. If he remembered correctly, though, Phobos’s gaze was something he’d like to avoid, so he was nearly thrilled to have the God keep a lid on those eyes.

The inside of the house was worse than the outside. It looked like Phobos had been throwing parties all week and hadn’t bothered to clean up the house after any of them. There were beer cans all over the floor, trash overflowing the bins, pillows cast on every free surface.

Phobos gestured towards the couch in a ‘go ahead’ motion, and Percy figured, ‘why not?’ so he sat. Thalia and Nico each took a seat next to him, Nico once again on his bad side.

“Do I know you?” Phobos pointed one long, thick finger at Percy.

“We’ve met before.” Percy was intentionally vague about it. If Phobos didn’t remember having a go at him before, this might go smoother than he’d been planning.

Phobos rubbed his temples. “Must not have been important.”

Percy tried not to take offense at that and failed. “You said something was missing.” He prompted, changing the subject.

“Yes. A sword of mine that I’m rather fond of.”

“Is it magical?”

“Not especially. It lends the bearer a certain amount of coolness, but that’s just my experience.”

“When did you last see it?”

“When that nasty chick my dad hangs out with nicked it off my and hid it.”

“Who’s that, and where’d she hide it?”

“She’s Eris, the goddess of discord. If I knew where she hid it I wouldn’t be asking you, idiot.”

“That’s not a lot to go on.”

“The sword has an energy pattern, a bit like that one in your pocket. This one doesn’t return to me, though, it returns to the strongest concentration of fear in the U. S. And before you ask where that is, I don’t know.”

“How are we supposed to find it on that?”

“Not my problem.”

Percy took a deep breath and looked away from the sunglasses. Getting angry was no good here. He looked at Thalia and Nico, who had been watching passively up until that point.

“Do you have any suggestions?” Thalia needled at Phobos.

“Yes, actually, I do.” Phobos turned towards her. “Write up a list of you three’s biggest fears, stick yourself in a room with them, and wait for my sword to show.”

“How’s that going to work?” Percy and Thalia both asked. Nico leaned back and nodded, like a light bulb had lit up over his head that the other two hadn’t gotten just yet.

“We’re three of the most powerful demigods alive. We each allow ourselves to feel that much fear at once; we’re bound to be the strongest fear signal around.”

“So, what, we just need to ‘confront and defeat our deepest fears’?” Percy was skeptical. That sounded far to Hallmark-y to be accurate.

“No.” Phobos leaned back and yawned. “You can’t defeat them, you need to be terrified. Duh.”

“Well, that makes sense then.” Percy wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not.

“Thank you, Mr. Phobos.” Nico stood up and pulled the other two up with him. “Come on, we have a list to write.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is about 2/3 the size of a normal chapter, I know. As I previously said, I had to break this up in two, so both were a little short.  
> Hey, hey, Phobos!  
> Sorry, we didn’t get to the break-down. Next chapter. I need something to keep you guys reading this, yes?  
> Tobi.


	6. Lists and Groceries

Previously:  
“So, what, we just need to ‘confront and defeat our deepest fears’?”  Percy was skeptical.  That sounded far to Hallmark-y to be accurate.  
“No.”  Phobos leaned back and yawned.  “You can’t defeat them, you need to be terrified. Duh.”  
“Well, that makes sense then.”  Percy wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not.  
“Thank you, Mr. Phobos.” Nico stood up and pulled the other two up with him. “Come on, we have a list to write.”

  
“Where now?”  Thalia broke the silence outside Phobos’ house.

Percy turned to Nico.  “Do you have enough energy to get us to my Mom’s house?”

Nico chewed on the corner of one hand, seeming to consider.  “Yes,” he said at length, “but I’ll likely pass out as soon as we get there.”

“We’ll watch your back.”  Thalia promised.  She readjusted her bow on her shoulder.  “Will your mom mind us just dropping in?”

“No.”  Percy said it instantly, before he stopped and thought about it.  In truth he was a little nervous about seeing his mom again.  The nightmare she had appeared in was still tumbling around in the back of his head, and—to the best of his knowledge—she hadn’t heard much about his recent injury, if she had heard anything.

“We need a place to regroup and formulate a plan.”  Percy reasoned, trying to convince himself more than the others.  Thalia was watching Percy carefully, while Nico kept an eye out around them, making sure nothing snuck up on them while Percy was lost in thought.

“Are you ready?”  Nico asked.  At least, that was what he said; his expression asked ‘Are you sure?’

Percy nodded.

Nico grabbed both Percy and Thalia by their wrists and led them over to the shadows falling from the house next to Phobos’s.  He took a deep breath, tugged them both in closer and pulled them along into the draining darkness.

 

Percy slammed back on his feet on the fire escape outside his house.  As the full weight of three teenagers dropped onto it, it rocked and clanged ominously.  Percy swore colorfully as he grabbed for the railing with his hand that didn’t exist, toppling into it and bruising his side.  He realized, belatedly, that he hadn’t checked on Nico.  He turned to see the dark boy being supported by Thalia.  She had dropped her bag to grab him under both arms, but he was taller than her, so he was tilted at an unnatural angle.  Percy staggered over to them and tucked his arm under Nico’s, freeing one of Thalia’s so she could snatch up her backpack.  
Percy tried the door that led to his bedroom and found it locked.  While he would have applauded his mother for her foresight in any other time, right now it was annoying.

‘Why did Nico have to stick us here?’  Percy grumbled internally, looking over the side of the rickety stairwell.  He knew it was probably because that was the part of the house Nico remembered—the staircase he had shown up on years ago with a plan for Percy to help save the world.  That was all very well, except Nico was unresponsive and heavy, and Percy was having trouble keeping himself balanced, let alone with another 150 lbs of dead weight, even with Thalia taking half.

“How’re we going to do this?”  Percy turned to Thalia, hoping she had a plan.

She slapped Nico on one side of his face, before lifting an eyelid to look at the empty, dark pupils.  “He’s out.”

“Hold on, I’ll be right back.”  Percy was hoping his mother hadn’t drastically changed her schedule.  He took Thalia’s bag and passed Nico off to her again, but she just lowered him to the ground.  Passed out and flopped on the fire escape, Nico looked dead, and that made Percy’s stomach churn to think about.  Shelving that for further inspection—or, more likely, further avoidance—Percy clambered down the weakening metal structure and ran around to the front, entering the (thankfully unlocked) front door.

“Mom?”  Percy yelled inside, tossing the bags to the side.  She hadn’t even rearranged since the last time he’d been here.  For a minute he stood there and remembered it’d only been a month or so since he last walked through that door.  He felt so different, and this place looked to…unchanged.

“Percy?  Is that you?”  Paul Blofis, Percy’s stepdad, came out of the kitchen, astonishment written all over his face.  He froze in the doorway.  He was wearing a bathrobe over his pajamas, as it was still early, and had a cup of coffee in his hands.  Paul raked his eyes over Percy’s ripped clothes, and settled them on the cavernous, dangling sleeve.

“Yeah.”  Percy broke the silence, fidgeting with his jeans pocket.  “A monster got my arm.”

Paul (bless him, the great man), snapped his mouth shut and nodded, once.

“I need help.”  Percy straightened and stated the reason why he was here as it bolted to mind.

“Alright.”  Paul set down his cup and looked at Percy expectantly, and Percy felt suddenly, unbelievably grateful that his mom had ended up with someone like this, who never belittled her or her delinquent son.  Like that he found himself hugging the man with his one arm, feeling Paul’s surprised jolt, before he settled in and patted Percy’s back.  ‘Okay, I’ve left those two out there long enough’.  Percy detangled himself from Paul.

“Can you help me get a friend down here, off the fire escape, and can we stay here for a bit?”

“Yes and yes.”  


Paul didn’t ask questions about why Nico was unconscious, or where they were going, or how long they’d be staying.  Percy wasn’t sure if that was because he was really chill, or if he just didn’t want to know what was going on.

“Your mom’s out at the store.  She should be back in about twenty minutes.”  Paul informed him as he and Thalia carried Nico down the stairs, followed by Percy with Nico’s bag and sword at full draw, watching for nasties that may attack the weaklings.

When they reached the living room Paul took Nico over to the couch and laid him down on it.  Nico looked cranky, even when out cold.

“Need anything else?”  Paul was clearly getting curious about what was going on, but wasn’t asking questions about it.

Percy dropped a smile up at him from his crouching position near Nico.  He was trying to guess how long Nico would be out, because they had a lot to plan for.

“Percy,” Thalia dropped to her knees next to the couch as well, “maybe we should get started on those lists.  You and I can work for a while, and when Nico gets up me and him can work while you rest for a bit, and then you and Nico while I rest.”

“I know we got plenty last night,” she cut him off before he could say anything, “but a little more won’t hurt, and that might be easier than working out of fears in a group.”  Her vivid blue eyes bored into Nico’s closed eyelids, as if she could see past them.

“Paper, then?”  Paul broke in from the kitchen doorway.  He was gradually working through an apple while watching the scene unfold.  Percy tried to envision it through his eyes: new-amputee stepson and punk/Legolas-wannabe-girl crouching next to an unconscious guy in all black, with two freaking-huge swords sticking out from behind him.  On that thought Percy leaned up and slipped the swords out of their holster, carefully sliding the bone one under the couch pillow under Nico’s head where he’d reach for it when he woke, and curling the other guy’s hand around the shiny black one and tucking that one in close to his body.

Thalia and Paul were both looking at him oddly, as if it were weird to arm the knocked-out teenager.  “What?” He said defensively.  “He likes to sleep with them.”

Paul mumbled something into his coffee and Thalia shook her head.  “Like a teddy bear.”  She muttered, seemingly to herself.  Then, to Paul, “Paper would be lovely.”  She shot the man a 300 watt smile.

Paul returned a minute later with a notebook and a few pens, which he handed to Percy.  Percy promptly fumbled the pens, not being able to grab it all.  Muttering, he swept them all together again.

“Here.”  Percy handed Thalia a pen and used his teeth to help him rip a couple sheets out of the notebook.  “What are we supposed to put down?”

“Write your biggest fears.  Put three or four down—we can always remove a couple if we need to.”

Percy realized that he hadn’t any idea what his biggest fears were.  He looked down at the glaringly blank, lined page and thought.

‘The dark.’  Percy wrote down in his rough, scratchy scrawl.  He shuddered just thinking of it.  He could hear Thalia’s soft scratching noise as she wrote down something.

‘Losing my family.’  He wrote on the next line down, as he heard the clinking of Paul in the kitchen, studiously avoiding the den of demigods.

Percy flicked his eyes up to Thalia.  She was chewing on the edge of her thumbnail and staring at the paper, as if she weren’t just afraid of the things she had written down, but was also afraid of the fact she had written them.  Percy wasn’t going to let himself be afraid of writing down what he was afraid of.

‘Being useless.’  He scratched onto the clean, white surface.  If he was doing this, why do it by halves?

Nico exhaled harshly, brow knitting.  Percy watched him for a moment, watched Nico’s chest rise and fall in a familiar pace.

‘Nico ~~hating not caring about~~ not needing me.’  Percy had to scratch it out twice before he managed to get the fear out on paper accurately.  It seemed odd to him that he didn’t have that fear about anyone else, but that was probably because he knew Annabeth and the rest of the demigods didn’t need him anymore.  The only person who seemed to need him was Nico, and he couldn’t lose that.

‘Drowning.’  He put below that.

He racked his brains and dropped his pen so he could rub his eye.  That was it.  That was all he could think of, all the fears he could collect.

 

He dropped his head to the papers on the ground, bending in half.  He just relaxed and breathed for a while, listening to nothing but the sound of Thalia’s writing.

Behind him, the door clicked open and then shut.

“Paul?  They didn’t have that brand cereal you like, so I bought the…” she trailed off when she noticed Percy.  Her eyes went wide and she dropped her purse on the table and bags on the floor, thoughtlessly.

“Percy.”  She breathed.

“Hi, Mom.”  He staggered to his feet and took her in.  She looked good, happy, hair flying away and shirt only half tucked-in, but so very happy.  He threw himself at her, wrapping his arm around her middle.  She set one hand on the back of his head, and the other—tenderly—around his side where there wasn’t an arm.  She gripped him tight and rocked back and forth for a second.  She pressed kisses on his forehead, having to stand on her toes to do so.

“Oh, Percy. My baby.”  She said, holding him close.  He felt some of the tension, the stress, melt away.  She didn’t think he was useless now; he had known she wouldn’t, because he knew her, but that hadn’t stopped the irrational fear from eating at him.

“What’s this about?”  She asked quietly, holding him at arm’s length.

“A drakon bit my arm off.”  His stomach roiled slightly as he told her.

“I see that.”  She said teasingly.  “I was actually asking about you and your friends.”  She looked behind him, at Thalia and Nico.  “Hello, Thalia.”  She said.

“Hello.”  Thalia responded.  She had picked up Percy’s sheet of paper and was scanning it.

Sally ran her hand back through Percy’s dark locks, trying to sweep his hair into something resembling order.  She gently ran her other hand over his bad shoulder, feeling the smooth break of where his arm was and now wasn’t.  Her face looked sad, but not angry or disappointed.  For that by itself Percy pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“It’s okay, Mom.”  He reassured her.  “I’m dealing with it.”

“I see that.”  She released herself from his grip and picked the bags back up.  Percy grabbed one, too, and took it into the kitchen.

 

“How long are you in the neighborhood?”  Sally inquired casually.  Paul had apparently gone back up to bed, or hopped in the shower, because the kitchen was empty save them.

“Until we get a plan sorted.  Do you mind?”

Sally gave him a bittersweet look as she stacked things in the fridge.  “I never mind you staying here, Percy. Anytime.”

Percy choked up a little, but breathed out through it.  He knew he had the best mom ever.

“Mom, I love you.”  Percy couldn’t bear not having said it for a moment longer.  Sally closed the fridge and turned back to him.

“I love you too, Percy.”  She reached for him, but he stepped back.  He had to check, needed to see.

“Do you think I’m useless?”  He whispered it, closing his eyes against her gaze, partially to block in tears.  He was not going to cry.  This was stupid, he knew she didn’t, surely she didn’t she was his mom; she would love him no matter what, right?

Right?

“Oh, Percy.”  He felt delicate hands rest on his shoulders, and just fell to pieces.

“I’m sorry.”  He gasped out, as his hand scrabbled along the counter behind him for purchase to keep from falling.  He didn’t know if he was apologizing for crying, or for showing up here and now, like this, or for having put himself in this position in the first place like an idiot.

“I’m so sorry.”  He repeated, tasting the salt of tears in the corners of his mouth when he spoke.  He felt his mother shaking her head next to his, wiping at his face and holding him.

For some reason, that just made him cry harder.  He was hiccupping, trying to get more air and not managing, because his throat was all tightened.  His pulse was jackhammering in his ears, blocking out his mom’s soothing words.  Some of them filtered through.

“Perseus, honey, no, you are so much more than that, you’re not useless. You will never be useless. I love you, it’s okay.”  She kept repeating that, like repetition would burst through the walls of his self-imposed prison of sorrow.

She kept rubbing his back in comforting circles and mumbling to him reassuringly until he hiccupped out.

He felt cleaner, less miserable.  It was as if the tears had swept some of the bad away, and now he felt ridiculous for sobbing in the middle of the kitchen.

He laughed, coughing.

“Better?”  His mom wiped some tears off her own face.  It seemed that his mom got sympathetically tearful.

“Much better.”  Percy remarked, more to himself than her.

They stood there for a moment, letting the tension in the air dissipate.  Percy pressed another kiss to his mom’s soft cheek and walked over to the sink, splashing cold water on his face.  Percy squeezed his mom’s arm, once, and went back to his friends, needing to escape the kitchen and emotion, and fast.

 

Percy sat down next to Thalia and leaned his back up against the couch where Nico still slept.  He knew she knew he had been falling apart in the kitchen, because he had been quite loud and his face was surely all blotchy.  She didn’t say a thing, just gave him a soft smile, like, ‘It’s shit, I know.’  Thalia handed over two papers—one his own list, one hers.

He scanned back over his own list—the dark, losing his family, Nico not needing him, drowning—before tucking that sheet behind Thalia’s.  Her handwriting was a lot neater than his, so he could read it easily.

“Heights.”  That was the first one written.  He was the first person to discover that, back when he had been traveling with her, Bianca, and Zoë.  Good times.

“Falling in love.”  Her loopy handwriting had shaken a bit on this one, like it had been difficult to get down.

Percy had always suspected that Thalia had loved Luke as more than a friend, and couldn’t imagine the pain she had gone through when he had gone over to Kronos’s side and then died.  If Annabeth were to ever do that, well, Percy would have been a wreck.  It was no wonder she was scared of being vulnerable like that again.

“Being responsible for a death of my hunters.”  This one was written stronger, nearly where the pen had pushed through the paper.  Percy took notice of the fact she wrote ‘my hunters’ instead of ‘a hunter’.  She must really feel responsible for them.  Percy knew the feeling of being responsible for people, and the terror that came with knowing you may harm them unintentionally.

Thalia gently pulled the paper out of Percy’s grasp and scrawled one more onto the list.

“Seeing Percy die.”

Percy’s eyes closed and opened again.  Some part of him knew that Thalia had felt brotherly toward him, and that he reminded her of Jason, who she lost.  Or, lost again.  It was one thing to suspect, and another to see it written down.

“Do you—“  Percy cleared his throat and tried again, meeting her electric eyes.  “Do you want to talk about this now?”  he tapped the paper, now on the ground between them, making sure his finger hit the last item.  He needed to know if she wanted to explain why that fear was there, even if he didn’t need—or want—to hear it.

She smiled wryly.  “Only if you want to talk about this.”  She tapped the second-to-last item on his list: Nico not needing him.

That was an insistent ‘no’.  He couldn’t comprehend by himself why that was a fear he had, let alone put it into words and then those words into something Thalia could grasp.

Like that, it was understood that those two fears weren’t going to be considered just yet.  They may have had to be looked at another time, but not right then.  Percy scooted closer to Thalia until their shoulders brushed, Thalia not pulling away, and the two sat there, lost in thought.  


When Nico woke up about an hour after that, Percy left his paper behind with Thalia and walked to his bedroom.  He wasn’t anxious about Nico seeing his list, as the two of them would have to go over it when he woke up.  He was curious to see how Nico reacted to being one of the fears on his list, if indirectly.  By ‘curious’, Percy of course meant ‘vaguely interested but detached’.

Being curious was too much work, and he was too tired.

His mom and Paul had gone off to work about twenty minutes before, after asking if the teens needed anything and requesting the three not burn or break the house.  It was a bit like being a normal teenager, who may have just thrown a party or got into the alcohol.  Percy wasn’t a normal teenager by a long shot, but it was nice to pretend that the worst thing he could do home alone was to get into the alcohol.  As if alcohol was a temptation.

His room was just as he left it—fairly empty, but with a made bed and random blue things stacked around.  There was a thin layer of dust on some of the shelves, but not as much as he would have suspected.  His mom must have dusted a couple of times.

Percy dropped onto the bed with a groan, toeing off his shoes and sliding under the covers.  He winced as he bumped the mattress with his left shoulder, but fell asleep nearly as soon as his head hit the pillow.

It was Thalia who woke him up around lunch-time.  He hadn’t checked a clock before falling asleep, but he felt less lethargic.  In contrast, Thalia looked like she’d been run through a wringer.  Her hair was all mussed up, like she’d been tugging at it, and she looked scared.

“Percy.”  She breathed, when he opened his eyes.

“What?”  Percy croaked back, pushing himself up.

“You were screaming.”  She was searching his face.  Percy felt his stomach drop slightly.

“Was I?”  He stood up and stretched.  He couldn’t even hold on to most of his nightmares anymore.  When he woke up they slipped like sand through his fingers.

“Get some food and look over Nico’s list.  I’m going to get some shut-eye.”  Thalia finally stopped checking Percy’s face for signs of distress and set her bow next to his bed before sliding in it.

“Sure.”  Percy grinned down at her.  “Sleep tight.”

 

After a peanut-butter sandwich, Percy headed into the living room to join Nico.  The Ghost King still looked a bit haggard, but not as bad as before.  He was sitting on the couch, three sheets of paper spread out on the coffee table, which he had apparently scooted in closer to the couch for easier use.

Percy sat down on the couch next to Nico.  He glanced over his and Thalia’s lists, glanced at Nico, and picked up the one that must have been his.  If Percy’s handwriting was bad, Nico’s was abysmal.  The fact that it was written in Greek was helpful, so he didn’t have to decipher as he read like with Thalia’s.  Even without the dyslexia it was hard to read.

“Silence.”  Percy saw, in his mind’s eye, the radio in the kitchen that was always on, the small pebble in his room back at Nico’s that hummed when tapped, and his breath whooshed out of him.

“Is that because of Tartarus?  The fear of silence?”  That was the best explanation, to Percy.  Traveling through that hell pit had left Percy afraid of the dark—it was only logical it would leave fear behind in Nico, this time in the form of silence.

“Yes.”  Nico was staring at the other two lists on the table, as if trying to commit them to memory.  ‘I should do that, too.’  Percy mused.

“Being unwanted.”  Percy stared at that fear for an uncommonly long time.  Bianca leaving for the Hunters, Percy’s own stupid actions, Hades’ and his god complex—there was any number of reasons why Nico would be afraid of that.  Percy wished he could have filed it in his own mind as an irrational fear, but it was far too true and likely.  Percy wished instead that Nico would never have to see that fear realized again.

“Percy finding out about the Archeron.”  That last sentence on Nico’s list had been scratched out violently, and re-written exactly the same.  Percy could see Nico very clearly, writing it, deciding he didn’t want that written down, and then adding it back again out of a sense of duty.

“Me finding out what about the Archeron?”  Percy set the paper back on the table softly, like it was a glass sheet that might break.  He turned to look at Nico, who met his eyes defiantly.

“Finding out why I was there and what it does.”

“Why would that be a secret?”

“I told you I swam in it on accident.”

“Yes…?”

“I lied.  I jumped off a cliff.  The river was less dangerous than I had anticipated.”

“Less dangerous?  Why the hell would you jump off a cliff into a dangerous river?”  Percy repeated, uncomprehending.

As Nico stared at him darkly, the figurative light bulb went off above his head, and he felt nauseous and angry at once.

“You were trying to kill yourself?!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder, guys, suicide’s not ever the answer. Nico was wrong. I warned you in the summary, though, so I don’t want to hear griping. These characters are, frankly, a bit fucked-up right now and will be for a while yet.  
> Next update should be coming in four—five days, to get me back on track. As always, I love to hear your feedback.  
> Tobi.


	7. Conversations

Previously:  
“Less dangerous? Why the hell would you jump off a cliff into a dangerous river?” Percy repeated, uncomprehending.  
As Nico stared at him darkly, the figurative light bulb went off above his head, and he felt nauseous and angry at once.  
“You were trying to kill yourself?!”

  
Percy rubbed his forehead, frustrated. He didn’t know what to ask. Why would Nico have jumped? What could have possibly driven him to the point of ending his own life?

“How could you?” That—that was the part Percy couldn’t comprehend. He knew, in theory that Nico had to have been troubled enough. Why wasn’t even the question.

But how could Nico have risked taking himself from them all?

Away from Hazel, who had already lost so much?

Away from Thalia, who felt responsible for Nico a lot like she felt responsible for Percy, and if one of them were to die, she’d feel like she’d lost Jason, again?

Away from Percy, who needed him, desperately?

“How could you do that to me?” Percy whispered angrily.

Nico looked away, rubbing a piece of the carpet.

“I was low. You didn’t, I mean, none of you,” he made a low noise, like he was grabbing for the words but couldn’t reach them, “none of you understood.”

“We understood!” Percy nearly yelled, catching himself at the last minute—he didn’t want Thalia to wake up and come here, now. It occurred to him that she knew, because she had seen Nico’s list before he did and surely would have asked, wanted to know.

“No.” Nico said quietly. “You don’t know, just as I don’t know what it was like to live your life. I made my choice, and never had to make the decisions you did,”

Percy’s mind’s eye he saw the dark dungeon of Hades’ dark castle. For the longest time he had always seen it as having been a betrayal—but that wasn’t it, was it?

Nico had thought up the plan of the River Styx. Without that plan, Percy could never have defeated the army up to Kronos, if Kronos wasn’t his victory.

Nico had turned him over to Hades.

Nico had broken him out of jail, betraying his own father to get Percy free.

 

Percy remembered a saying he had heard from Leo, that day, as the wind snatched at their clothes as if trying to drag them off, like it was trying to make a deal with whoever’s in charge of those things. ‘Take these two, give us Jason back’.

“The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies.” Leo said it softly, so that only Percy could hear him. That alone made Percy feel what

Leo was feeling, his best friend gone; Leo, loud, fun Leo who always had a wrench and a joke in a back pocket and wore his heart on his sleeve (or so Percy had thought), was saying deep things that hit like punches, in a quiet voice.

Nico had betrayed people, and betrayed Percy the day he walked out and decided to kill himself. The saddest thing was: Percy could see where he was coming from, and that alone scared him more than the dark ever could.

 

“I understand how.” Percy swallowed hard, and rubbed at his eyes, which weren’t crying out of emotional upheaval but just sore, and that was making it water.

“Now, I want to know why.”

Nico laughed dully. “You sure you want to know?”

Percy thought. He really, truly did.

Didn’t Nico deserve secrets? Percy had lived most of his life having other people’s noses in his business, was it fair to demand answers from Nico?

Maybe not. Did Percy care whether it was fair or not?

“I want to know. But only tell me,” Percy added hastily, “if you want to. And I don’t want you to lie to me.”

“I won’t lie.” Nico said coldly. Before Percy’s eyes, he seemed to melt a little—his shoulders slumped, and he bowed his head, winding his fingers around each other.

He closed his eyes and his face scrunched up, letting the blank, distant face he’d been wearing fall away.

“In the end it came down to three things: I know death, intimately—everyone I’ve ever loved had left me—and there was nothing, nothing, left for me at that time.”

“Explain.” Percy prompted. He didn’t want to look at Nico right now, but he needed to know.

He needed to know it wasn’t going to happen again, and he needed to know what he had done to let it happen in the first place.

“I live among the dead. I hear them; I know what they feel and what they know. Do you know what they remember about their lives, Percy?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer. “They don’t remember anything.”

“The ones in Elysium do.” Percy remembered having heard that from someone at camp, an encouragement to someone who had lost a friend.

“Not my problem.” Nico smiled, wide and crooked, like the Cheshire cat in that mortal story about the girl. “I knew I wouldn’t make it to Elysium.”

Percy didn’t know how the laws of the underworld went, and if suicide immediately barred you from considering having died a hero’s death. If Nico couldn’t make it, very few people would have a chance.

“I’ve seen death. I know death better than I do my own father. Death doesn’t scare me.”

He was quiet for a moment. Percy could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, like crickets in the silence. After a moment he prompted Nico to start sharing again. “You said you thought everyone you ever loved left?”

“You know, Percy—you’ve seen.”

“I saw your mom die, reluctantly. I saw Bianca cruelly taken away. Your dad’s a dick. Hazel still loves you and hasn’t left.” Percy rattled off, trying to prove that Nico was wrong, in this.

“My mom,” he hesitated, “she didn’t want to leave. Bianca chose to go, before she died. She joined the Hunters. My dad’s a dick, yes. Hazel loves me but, let’s face it, she’d rather not be around me most of the time. She has Frank, and I make Frank nervous.” Nico looked proud at that, as if it was a good thing that he scared his sister’s boyfriend. “Jason bit it,” Percy startled, “And you avoided me like the plague, until I was useful to you, which hurt like hell, you bastard. Sounds a bit different put like that, huh?”

“A bit.” Percy found himself wringing his own hands.

“Are you going to ask me about that?” Nico was watching him, apprehensive.

Percy wanted to, badly. But he knew he couldn’t deal with any more, well, feelings. “Later. You said you thought there was nothing left for you.” He stressed the word ‘thought’.

“I thought there wasn’t. There wasn’t—there is now, though.” He seemed to grin for a moment, not the bitter-cruel one, but the real one that squinted-up the left side of his face and showed the crooked teeth near the back of his mouth. It made Percy’s heart tighten, a bit; the fact that this smile was hardly ever seen was disheartening.

“I built myself something to live for.” He muttered, still smiling, and Percy saw exactly how proud Nico was of everything he had achieved.

“You became the main strategist for Hades’ army.” Percy supplied what he knew of Nico’s life.

“I did. I built myself houses, got Jeeves, and became important down there. I’ve been going to medical school; did you know?”

“I knew you knew some medical stuff, but I didn’t know it was that . . . entitled.”

“It hardly is entitled.”

“Wait, you never even got a middle or high school education!”

“I don’t actually enroll in the classes.” Nico rolled his eyes, like, ‘Enroll in the classes you take, not likely’.

“Then what do you do?”

“I shadow-travel into the classroom, take notes, listen to all the lectures.” He flashed the crooked, teeth-showing smile again. “I’m very talented.”

The air grew quiet again, and then quickly stale. Percy floundered around for something to say.

“Are you okay? I mean, it’s not going to happen again.” Percy didn’t allow Nico a chance to deny it. “Please don’t let it happen again.”

“I’m fine. I’m happy. It’s not going to happen again. Percy,” Nico ducked his head, trying to catch Percy’s eyes, but Percy kept looking away, “It is not going to happen again.”

Finally, Percy looked up, burning his gaze through Nico. ‘If you’re lying to me,’ he projected the thought from his own sea-green eyes to Nico’s dark ones, ‘I will track you down in that creepy underworld and I will kill you, again.’

“Make sure it doesn’t.” He warned out loud.

“I need, um,” Nico waved off in the direction of the kitchen, “To not be here.” He finished, apparently decided to not bother with collecting an excuse.

“Have a sandwich.” Percy suggested, needing some space as well. “They seem to be good for avoiding confrontation.”

“Think for a bit.” Nico suggested. He looked happier, freer, having gotten things off his chest. Percy knew he felt like he was lighter, looking down at three sheets of paper that held their biggest fears.

  
After noon, Nico left a note and shadow-traveled to a lecture in the East side on the cardiovascular system.

“Eew. So, blood and stuff?” Percy joked from behind a glass of coke. Things seemed normal again between Nico and Percy, or as normal as it had ever been—which was still dysfunctional.

“Yes. I like to work with blood and stuff.” Nico said dryly.

After he had gone Percy hopped in the shower, delighting in the fact that there was proper soap and warm water, and no teeth imbedded in the tile, which was something that had startled him when he noticed it back in the shower in Hades.

He leaned back against the wall, water rushing over his stomach, and felt around his bad shoulder.

It still hurt, constantly, which he forgot to notice a lot of the time. It was like having a bruise or a splinter that you forget the pain of, only much larger. Then there was the sharp pain, the agonizing split that tore through his side and across his ribs when he touched at it. It was like his nerves were throwing hissy-fits at being touched, like tiny Thalia’s in his arm.

Maybe that was a bad analogy.

There were still stitches in his arm that Nico would have to take out at some point. The thread was thin black stuff, doubled-back on itself for strength. Thankfully the area had stopped bleeding a while ago, because demigod blood was worse that bright neon flags in trees declaring him to be highly edible to any nearby monsters.

Once Percy felt scrubbed clean, he shut off the water and wandered back into the living room, dressed in a different set of clothes he had snuck in and snatched out of his dresser while Thalia slept on.

Percy closed his eyes and opened them again, walking in a circle around the room.

Thalia was sleeping in his room, looking finally at peace, but only in rest. He had noticed when he went in that she had put on her own camp necklace, and had another wrapped around her ankle. He had stared at it for a moment, and at first he thought it was Jason’s, put Jason has only had one bead on his necklace, and this one had more than a handful. That meant it could only be Luke’s. He wished he hadn’t noticed.

Nico was off getting an education, and that scared him, and the fact that it scared him scared him. Because at first, he thought it was because Nico was gathering more knowledge, and Nico was already one of the most powerful people he’d known and he kept adding to that, but then he realized what the real reason it scared him was. Nico had a future, a plan, something to work at.

Percy had never bothered to plan much beyond the wars. The first war, the Titan War, had come so fast before he had time to muse on such things. The only time he considered his life beyond that had been when he was certain he was going to lose it. Luke had taken the cursed blade, in the end, and Percy had thought he could be hopeful. The second war, the war with Gaia, had built more, but he hadn’t let himself think about it much, and when he did he thought about the wrong things.

He planned out to live with Annabeth, just to find, when all the fuss had died down, that she had been his best friend and first love, but not his love, with all the pressure and inflections thrown onto that word.

He wondered if there was a love out there.

Now he was left wandering. He had been working at the camp, training other kids to use a sword like he’d been taught. He still though of Luke, when he walked through the doorway, Luke who first taught him to use a sword. That was before he lost the arm, though, he thought ruefully. There wasn’t much teaching to impart now.

Maybe he’d go into something aquatic, like fishing or sailing. He could do that.

A wave of homesickness rose in him, which made him feel sick—not because he disliked the feeling of homesickness, but because he was standing in the living room of the house he had always considered home, but because as he felt the achy tugging feeling it occurred to him that this wasn’t the home he belonged to anymore.

His feet moved before he had even considered his next moves. He fished through his jacket pockets until he found one dulled golden drachma. He walked into the kitchen, palming the coin, and turned the sink on sprayer before using some of his power to filter a thin sheet of water droplets up in front of the window.

There was the rainbow he had been searching for.

He flicked the golden circle through the arc of color and recited the prayer, hoping Iris would take the offering.

She did, and after a moment’s wait he found himself looking at a foggy, misty, churning version of the inside of the Athena cabin, at Camp Half-Blood. His knees felt weak and he grabbed the counter with his arm to keep himself steady.

He could barely make out Annabeth’s elbow in the corner of the frame, and was amused by the fact that he knew it was hers from just that. One of her siblings must have seen Percy, because someone said her name and she turned around and, gods.

Her hair was curling and tucked up into ponytail and her grey eyes were so familiar. She looked tired, but not upset or sad. She looked at Percy, then at her siblings, and Percy heard the rustling of a few kids beating hasty exits. Percy tried for smile.

“Hey, Wise Girl.” He said, but his voice broke and he had to look away for fear of getting watery-eyed.

“Hey, Seaweed Brain.” She responded in kind, and they just looked at each other for a moment.

That was always the brilliant thing about Annabeth, when it came ot loss. Some people wanted to reassure, to make everything better, and they couldn’t. other’s didn’t want to be around it, like pain and suffering were contagious and maybe they weren’t aware of how to deal with people who had lost something. Annabeth just stood and offered silence, and a grey-eyed gaze that said ‘I love you’, in the purest way.

“I’m on a quest, and I wanted to check in on you.” He offered an explanation, even though he knew he didn’t owe her one.

“I’m glad you did. I tried to Iris-message you a couple of times, but I guess it doesn’t work in the underworld.” She tried to explain. Then her gaze softened, and she looked at his arm, where there wasn’t an arm. “How are you doing, with that?”

It occurred to Percy that this, here, was the first time the two of them had spoken since ‘that’ had happened. He had thought about her enough that it seemed like it wasn’t.

“Good.” He said automatically, but she caught him with the expression that said she knew better. “I’m getting there.” He corrected himself, and she smiled.

“I’m glad. You know, you need to talk, dial me. Anytime.” She insisted, and he saw her eyes were glimmering a bit and it wasn’t the sheet of water between them.

“I’m glad, now stop.” He said, only partially kidding, “You’re going to make me cry, and I’ve done enough of that these past days.”

“You’re on a quest with Thalia and Nico?” Annabeth sensed what he was getting at, and switched the subject. She was smart like that.

“Yes, we’ve got to find something that jerk Phobos lost. We’ve got a game plan; we’re waiting until tomorrow to put it into motion.”

“What’s the plan?” He knew this about Annabeth: she liked to know people’s plans and strategies, she gathered them like people collected other things.

“The sword is attracted to the highest concentration to fear in the U.S.”

“It’s an energy return.” Annabeth said approvingly. Then she frowned, “How can you possibly know where the highest fear concentration is?”

“We’re going to bring it to us. We’re planning on exposing ourselves to most of our biggest fears, get ourselves really terrified, and wait for the sword to show.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

“Nope.”

She laughed. “Well, be careful. I don’t want you three to get too worked up, that’s a lot of power.”

“Carefully.” Percy pretended to scoff. “Careful is no fun!”

They talked for a few more minutes about lighter things, about how mutual acquaintances were and the weather and between that and the previous conversation with Nico, he felt lighter than he had in a long time.

“I should go now. Love you.” She blew him a kiss.

“Bye, love you.” After the circle faded he turned off the water.

He should finish planning for the next day. He still had to figure out how they were going to work some of the fears, had to polish his sword, and had to tell his mom he wouldn’t be back in a while.  


Dinner that night was awkward. Paul and his mom made small talk, Thalia didn’t talk much, and Nico kept stealing food off her plate when she wasn’t looking.

Eventually Percy found himself talking about the past while in the underworld, with his mom and Paul asking questions. It was funny, as they kept asking about normal parent things, and he had never seen them as normal parental figures.

“Are you eating enough?” His mom asked, sounding worried, like she thought he was starving or something.

“Yes, more than enough—A lot of fruit.”

“You’re not going to get stuck down there, right?” Paul busted in, clearly recalling the story of Persephone and the pomegranate just as Percy had.

“Nope. I like it down there, anyway. It’s quiet.”

“Is there anything to do, like, hobbies?”

“Walking, fighting,” Percy smiled around a mouth of corn, “I slept a lot of the time.”

“Oh, are you,” Sally looked at Thalia and Nico, as if they might volunteer the word she was looking for, “sleeping okay? No nightmares?”

In another world, Percy might have been embarrassed by his mom’s gentle interrogation. As it was, he didn’t embarrass easily.

“I still get them a lot. I think I’m a lot louder, now.” Percy looked to Nico, as he had (obviously) never heard himself yelling in his sleep, but Nico and Thalia had both mentioned it.

Nico shrugged, slipping a roll off of Thalia’s plate. “You’ve gotten a lot better. You still thrash like nothing, though.” He added.

Percy saw, out of the corner of his eye, Paul’s head spin to Sally so fast it was lucky he didn’t get a crick in it. His expression was more confused than concerned, but Sally didn’t look much better. She glanced from Nico to Percy like she was trying to read something between lines, before she flicked her eyes to Thalia questioningly. Thalia shook her head.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Percy said, exasperated. “We’re not,” he flailed for a moment, feeling his mom’s curious eyes on him, as he tried to find a word for what he knew his mom was wondering, before giving up. His vocabulary had failed him for a word to describe him and Nico. “We’re not! It’s just sleeping!” He repeated what he had told Thalia.

“Alright, Percy.” His mom nodded, looking unperturbed. Paul was still looking at Nico and Percy, squinting slightly, and Thalia looked amused. Percy chanced a look at Nico, who looked about ten levels of confused.

“I’ll explain later.” Percy muttered to him. “Pass the corn.” He said, louder.  


“Mom, we’re going tomorrow. Early.” He said that night, before going to bed.

She brushed his hair back and to the side. “I’ll miss you. Visit when you can.” She pressed a kiss to his forehead.

“I will. Goodnight, mom.”

That night Thalia took the couch and Percy and Nico shared the bed, after packing things to be ready to go in the morning.

Percy didn’t get near enough sleep, chewing his lip worrying about the next day and the troubles it held.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a lot of action in this chapter. I wanted to get some conversation and character development presented.  
> Next chapters: fear and a hella lot of it. Weeee.  
> Tobi.


	8. Webs of Copper and Gold

Previously:  
That night Thalia took the couch and Percy and Nico shared the bed, after packing things to be ready to go in the morning.  
Percy didn’t get near enough sleep, chewing his lip worrying about the next day and the troubles it held.

  
“I have an idea.” Thalia announced. The three of them were on a park bench. They knew, thanks to years of quests or—In Nico’s case, hiding out—that park benches were the best place for discussing quests. People didn’t stop to listen, and the noise of others, walking, footsteps and conversations, blocked out the sound for anyone who could be listening.

“Good.” Percy had realized that morning that the majority of their fears were abstract and would be hard to replicate enough to where they would be scared. Thus, the three had been brainstorming for a couple of hours, throwing out ideas as they thought of them. “What is it?”

“There’s an artifact, an old thing of Ares’s. It can be used to make a fear potion.”

“That sounds perfect.” Percy said, irritated. Why hadn’t she brought that up before!? He scratched furiously at the top of his shoulder, because where it really itched—down at the bottom, near the wrist—wasn’t attached to his body. It was just more phantom pains.

“It’s in a museum.” She drawled slowly. She poked at Nico, who had fallen asleep on the grass near them. He’d been summoning dead people for a while, trying to find any ways of completing the mission. As Thalia’s skinny finger prodded him, he twitched and mumbled crankily in his sleep.

“Leave him alone.” Percy scratched harder at his shoulder, hoping the itch would go away. “You said a museum?”

“Yes, in New York.”

“Can we rob it?”

“We can try.”

“I think,” Percy paused and stared down at his hand. Is this really what I’ve come to? He asked himself. Stealing from museum?

“I think that’s our best option.” He said, at length. Life: 1. Morals: 0.

“Me too.” Thalia agreed. “Nico?”

Nico snuffled and opened one eye with a jerk. “What? Oh, I agree with,” he waved his hand at the other two half-heartedly, “everything. Yes.”

Percy laughed. “We’re thinking of breaking into a museum to get an artifact that will help, a lot.”

“Oh.” Nico propped himself up, all lean muscle and black clothes. “You know I’m always down with thievery.”

Thalia rolled her eyes. “Let’s go case the joint.”  


The bus ride from Minnesota to New York was long.

Percy sat across from Nico and Thalia, squished between two Japanese girls who had a rapid conversation in front of, behind, and across him. Percy kept his eyes nearly closed, barely squinting, keeping constant vigilance on the bus and the people.

He spent the time watching his companions in what he hoped was a subtle manner, but probably wasn’t, judging from the looks him seatmates were giving him. At least they weren’t ogling his arm.

Thalia kept touching her beaded necklace, with this odd, vulnerable look on her face. Out of the dozens—hundreds—of words Percy had do describe Thalia, one he never wanted to associate with her was vulnerable. Her eyes, such stormy, passionate eyes, looked fragile as she gazed out of the bus window to her left. Percy saw in his mind’s eye (cruelly sharp, finely-detailed) Thalia, curled around herself on his bed, a necklace around her neck—reminding her of the life she gave up—and a necklace around her ankle—reminding her of the love she lost before she could have it. That Thalia had been vulnerable too.

Nico had tilted his head back to lean against the bus window, so his face was all chin and cheekbones and dark eyelashes brushing dark fringe of hair. He had his swords strapped to his back again. He was wearing a nearly black T-shirt that once advertised a band, but was so worn it was hard to read what the band was. That and his jeans, which Percy was pretty sure Nico had been wearing for three days now without wash. It was hard for Percy to tell, because they all the pairs Nico owned (which was like, three) looked almost the same. Percy knew one pair had a missing back pocket, but other than that, Nico could have been wearing the same clothes every day for weeks. The thought was a bit miserable. Tilted back against the window, chest rising and falling with each breath, Nico looked. . .serene, in a way Percy hadn’t seen anyone, or any war-people, as he’d taken to thinking about them, look in a while.

It was hard to match this Nico, the soft-eyelashed-worn-jeans-serene-Nico, up with the Nico he remembered seeing years ago, or the Nico that Nico had been inbetween, that Percy didn’t get to see often because he was busy or preoccupied or just plain stupid.

“And you avoided me like the plague, until I was useful to you, which hurt like hell, you bastard.” Nico had called him on it. Percy didn’t know, hadn’t thought, and hadn’t wanted to think about it— Nico was a reminder of the people who were darkened or changed or even lost to death in the war. At least, Nico-between-points-A-and-B was. The younger Nico, the little doe-eyed boy in the too-big armor, holding Mythomagic cards, was a reminder of how Percy had failed. The Nico after that (Percy knew it wasn’t the same Nico, just as he knew he wasn’t the same Percy, and Thalia wasn’t the same Thalia) had been a reminder of the war and the things Percy had lost to that war.

But that stage had moved; that Nico had left the building along with Elvis and whoever else left, not to be seen again. And the optimistic Percy had started to die on the battlefield next to Jason and finished the process on that street next to a drakon.

Unbidden, the memory lurched to mind as if the bus had pulled to a stop.

Silence, a haunting silence where there had been the screeching metal of fighting, scared Percy more than any scream of pain.

Because minutes ago there had been a rallying call, a crackling static, a low murmur, and the hair on the back of Percy’s neck had stood on end.

Wrong filled the air. It was peaceful, Percy should’ve been ecstatic, but the peace came at way, way too high a price.

Because there, yards away on the grass, which was far too bright and alive, vivid green painted with scarlet and a blonde boy in a shirt that should have been purple but was only purple around the edges because of the blood soaking through it.

“Please.” Jason had looked past Piper—who looked empty as she recognized that there was no charm-speaking the boy she loved back from this grave—right to Percy. Eyes as blue as the sky and filled with pain met eyes as green as the Mediterranean and filled with heartbreak.

And he was heartbroken, because he loved Jason like a brother, because while Jason was annoying and too strict about rules he was good, and Percy had fought him and fought alongside him and fought for him. Jason was begging him for something Percy couldn’t bear, and his heart was breaking.

“Now approaching Terminal 5.” The intercom interrupted, and Percy was back in the present. The present sucked, but not as bad as that part of his past.  
Percy looked back at Thalia. She’d been there. She’d been injured herself, unable to help, and Percy didn’t know how she could look at him and not see a monster, not hate his guts.

Maybe she was like Nico, and she hated him as much as she loved him. He thought that wasn’t likely, because Thalia wasn’t like Nico, in that respect. She fought with her emotions until someone one, and if she hated Percy she would treat him as such, not handling them both like Nico did.

Thalia turned to Percy. She probably sensed his eyes on her. For a minute, Percy was going to cry as he met her eyes, because they looked identical to the ones he’d just seen in his flashback—stormy blue. He didn’t, because heroes or boys don’t cry and there’s no crying in baseball and besides, he had cried himself out in the last couple days and enough was enough.

“Are you—”she froze as Percy shook his head furiously and pointed to Nico. She rolled her eyes, but nodded. “Are you okay?” she mouthed it, instead of speaking it, like he had wanted her to do.

“Yes.”

She looked dubious. He knew his face had always been an open book. “Are you sure?” She said silently.

“Yes,” he hesitated, “Just lost in thought.”

She looked down at her lap, at her twisting fingers, and he knew she understood what that was like.

She looked at Nico, to her right. “He snores.”

“I know.” Percy looked at her like, duh. He slept with the guy nearly every night. It wasn’t quite snoring, anyway—more like rough, scratchy breathing.

“Oh, that’s right. You two are sleepover buddies.” Percy didn’t even know it was possible to lip-read attitude. It was possible, and Percy flushed slightly.

“Stop it.” He mouthed back.

“No!” She smiled. “But seriously, it’s cool. If it works.” She shrugged, like she wouldn’t be caught dead with a dude in her bed. Oh, wait, Hunter of Artemis. Yeah.

The two of them idly chatted back and forth silently, and then in whispers, after they figured out lip-reading isn’t all that accurate.

Eventually Nico woke up and Thalia and Percy continued their debate on whether Paramore or Fall-Out Boy was a better band.

“Seriously, you guys are arguing over this.” Nico gave them a ‘get real’ look. “You are both so…punk.” He said the word like an insult.

Thalia preened happily.

“I’m not punk!” Percy protested.

“He’s not.” Thalia agreed. “He’s more skater.”

“Whatever.” Nico rolled his eyes.

“Not you too!” Percy gasped. “It’s bad enough that Thalia rolls her eyes a lot, I can’t stand the both of you doing it!”

In response, they both rolled their eyes.

“Jerks.” Percy sank in his seat.

“It’s Fall-Out Boy.” Nico said shortly, running a hand over his face.

“No!” Percy growled, while Thalia cackled.

“Green Day trumps all.” Percy added, after a moment.

“Agreed.” Thalia said.

“Sure.” Nico shrugged.  


“Well, this is bad.” Percy stared up at the building in front of them, and or a moment saw it from above, as the gods where surely seeing at as they laughed at the demigods. From the god’s eye view, he saw the three of them—or, more likely, three mops of black hair and backpacks—standing in front of a three-story-tall, solid-as-a-rock building, complete with security cameras, guards, and crowds of people.

Nico shrugged. “You’ve hit worse.”

“Hit meaning…?” Thalia queried, watching the guards switch out their shifts. There were two on either side of the front door.

“Literally and figuratively. He has both broken into and smacked around worse problems.”

“True.” Percy acknowledged with a tilt of his head. One of the guards was eyeing his arm. Percy grinned salaciously at the guard when he caught his eye, and the guard stopped staring.

 

Percy led the others to a nearby park and they pulled the notebook and pens out of Nico’s pack, sharing, and writing down plans.

“It’s the week; the place will be empty. We’ll stick out like sore thumbs. Not you, Percy, but Nico and I still look like we’re in our mid-teens.”

“I could shadow-travel us in, but I couldn’t do anything else if I were to get us back out.”

“The bowl’s on a shelf, at least, so we won’t have to bust it out.”

Object they were looking for: bowl. Thalia had toured the museum and picked up information, because Percy was already attracting a bit of attention and Nico didn’t do well amongst all those old objects without good reason. Too many ghosts, he had said.

The bowl was bigger, like a bread-bowl, about a foot and a half in diameter. It had once been clay, typical of the Greek potters, before being broken. It was repaired with copper, so that the surface was spider-webbed with copper threads running to and fro. Then it was given to a handmaiden of Apollo as a gift, and she gave it to Aphrodite as a wedding present, whereupon, presumably because Aphrodite didn’t want to get married and didn’t need a reminder of an unhappy union, so she gave the bowl to her lover, Ares. Ares broke it and it was re-repaired, because apparently the Greek threw nothing away, but this time it was sealed with gold, so the orange and yellow spider webs wove across its surface. Ares gave it to Phobos as a coming of age present—Phobos was less-than-pleased with the bowl’s origins, and gave it to some mortal. At some point all the emotional entanglement manifested in the bowl under the power of its owner, Phobos, so the bowl could be used to make a fear potion.

“That’s messed up.” Percy declared, as Thalia recited all of that, which had been noted off to one side of the shelf the bowl was on. All but the part about the fear potion, and the understanding that the Greek gods were real. The museum didn’t mention those.

“Here’s the plan.” Percy could feel an idea, a strategy, forming. Even if strategy wasn’t what he did best, he could do it. “Thalia, you’re going to call people, and find out the exact recipe for that potion. Tonight, Nico’s going to break me and him in, and you’re going to, um, borrow supplies from stores or homes. Buy them if you can, but if you can’t, don’t worry too much about it.”

“Yes, sir.” Thalia smirked.

“While you’re borrowing—“

“Stealing.”

“Borrowing things, Nico’s going to shadow-travel me into the museum, I’m going to grab the bowl, and we’ll shadow-travel out to where we meet up. We’ll return the bowl when the potions made, of course.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” Nico said.

“I need some drachma if I’m going to Iris-message people.” Thalia looked expectantly at Percy, then Nico.

“No.” Nico shook his head.

“We saw your bag, at the motel. You’ve got twice as much as the both of us put together.”

“Worth a shot.” Thalia flashed a smile over her shoulder and headed for the fountain.

“Think we can pull this off?” Nico asked quietly. He had his hands tucked in his hoodie pocket, and his hair was blowing against his face. He didn’t look serene, just like Thalia didn’t look vulnerable.

“I don’t know. I hope so.” Percy shoved his hand in his own pocket, once again feeling the acute not-there feeling about his other hand.

“I’m not sure I want it to.” Nico admitted, even softer than before. Percy looked over at him.

“I know.” Percy did. Nico was scared of seeing his fears, that’s why they were fears. Nico struggled with his troubles just as Percy did; only Percy’s were less motivating emotions, so they stagnated rather than eating. Percy was afraid of things happening, while Nico was afraid of them not happening. The only reason Percy was willing to do this, even if his mouth was going dry at the sheer thought of living out the things that terrified him, was because this was his quest and he had wanted it. This wasn’t Nico’s quest—Percy needed him, because he knew he wouldn’t be powerful enough by himself, and it was less masochistic if someone else did it with him, right? Or did that make him sadistic, for doing this and asking Nico to do it, knowing that Nico would?

It was law of the new, after the war, after dying-inside Percy: Nico was a constant, like gravity. Nico would never not have a strong emotion for Percy, be it loathing or affection or whatever. Another law of after-the-war Percy: all Nico would have to do was say ‘please’, would be to push the littlest bit on an emotional bruise, to guilt trip Percy just a bit for all the damage done to him—Percy would have walked away.

Nico didn’t. Percy didn’t. He sat on the hard bench, wooden planks digging into his spine and his nonexistent elbow hurting like hell, and watched Thalia toss golden coins into the fountain and write down ingredients.

 

It was later. The sky was dark. Thalia had their pooled mortal money, Percy and Nico both had their swords drawn, and they were standing two blocks away from the museum, in an alley. The plans were set—they knew where they were meeting, they knew who was doing what.

Thalia swatted at Percy when he went to adjust her messenger back strap. “See you in a bit, Seaweed Brain.” She turned to Nico. “And you, Creepy.” Nico grinned, all teeth, and she walked away.

“You ready?” Percy asked, when her figure at retreated. He wasn’t sure about that ‘creepy’ bit, but it was a pretty apt nickname.

“Yep.” Nico grabbed Percy’s arm in a harsh grasp, sure to leave bruises, and they moved backwards into the speeding darkness.  


“That was a bitch.” Nico announced, when they dropped into a different alley, an hour later. He promptly collapsed half on top of Percy, who just crumpled to the ground, exhausted.

“You can say that again.” Percy groaned. His arm was sore, his shirt had been ripped, he’d nearly gotten his ear pierced and he’d never been an ear-piercing type of guy. He wiggled his leg a bit to get it out from under Nico’s boney hipbone, which was digging into his kneecap.

“That was a bitch.” Nico repeated.

Percy laughed, once, a sharp bark. It felt good to laugh.

“Trolls.” Percy said, disgusted. “Who knew they were real?”

Nico let out a huff of breath that sounded kind of like, “not me”.

“I mean, trolls?” Percy felt his hair sticking to the concrete below his head, and found himself in the odd position of hoping whatever was doing the sticking was his own blood. He pulled his head up a bit, felt the spin of the world, and lowered it again. Adrenaline not worn off yet, apparently.

He could feel his pulse pounding through his head, his chest, his fingertips.

“I feel…alive.”

“You are alive.” Nico pointed out. His voice was rough and scratchy in a way that made Percy’s pounding pulse settle a bit, turn into a pins-and-needles sensation. “You just don’t act like it.”

“Hey!” Percy said indignantly, going to prop himself up but failing because he relied on an arm that wasn’t there, and an arm that was going spaghetti-noodle-y with exhaustion. “You’re one to talk about acting alive.”

He regretted the words the minute, the instant, they left his lips.

“I didn’t mean—” he went to explain, excuse, say anything. Nico cut him off.

“Stop, Percy.”

There was a minute, then two, when the both of them said nothing. Nico didn’t remove his weight from Percy’s legs, didn’t counter Percy’s comment. Percy didn’t say anything, because Nico said stop. Percy couldn’t say anything, so he did something.

He forced his good(ish) arm under him, sitting fully up, before leaning over. Don’t think. Don’t speak. He beseeched himself, wanting something small without having to fear losing it.

He pushed Nico’s hand off the boy’s closed eyes, where he’d covered them, and pressed a small kiss to his cheek.

“Percy,” Nico went to say something, but Percy cut him off. He didn’t want to hear it, not now. He moved a little to the side and pressed his own lips to Nico’s chapped ones, soflty, gently.

A small kiss. An apology. A promise he couldn’t pu into words. ‘I’m a bastard for everything I’ve done, and will do, but I need you. Please.’

After a moment, Nico kissed back, once. An acceptance. Then he shoved Percy gently back, away from him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meh, good enough pausing point. As will always be the case, I love to hear you guy’s thoughts. Clue me in.  
> Next chapter: what the hell. Look, kissing. Which means next chapter: the awkwardness that comes after kissing.  
> Tobi.


	9. The Definition of Innocence

Previously:  
A small kiss. An apology. A promise he couldn’t pu into words. ‘I’m a bastard for everything I’ve done, and will do, but I need you. Please.’  
After a moment, Nico kissed back, once. An acceptance. Then he shoved Percy gently back, away from him.

 

Nico must have understood—as the two of them flopped back down and let their breathing settle, and waited for Thalia to return in an hour or so—that the kiss was not going to be discussed. He didn’t ask Percy about it, which Percy was grateful for, because he didn’t even fully understand.

He knew he had no words for what he was feeling.

He knew actions spoke louder than words.

He knew he wasn’t attracted to Nico any more than he was attracted to Annabeth or Thalia, which wasn’t saying he wasn’t attracted to him. He knew the way Nico’s muscles shifted when he ran through drills and the way his eyes reminded him of an old song of his mother’s by Bob Dylan, just as he knew the way Annabeth’s voice sounded when she muttered out loud to herself while reading, like he knew how Thalia’s fingers caressed rails and signposts as she walked.

He knew he couldn’t love Annabeth like that. And he knew Thalia could never be his as anything more than a sister, even if he had wanted her.

He also knew he had no right to kiss Nico, if he wanted to kiss him again. He didn’t especially, right then, because that wasn’t a kiss of wanting to kiss someone but rather a kiss of wanted to express something.

How are they different? Percy questioned himself. He was acutely aware of Nico’s body thrown over his legs, still, one arm clutching the bowl, dozing lightly. They are, and it matters, he insisted to himself.

It was like two different paths to the same location. It would have been easier if he had kissed him because he liked him, and he wanted to. This is a hell of a lot harder. Because he didn’t know what he was feeling, other than the fact that he knew Nico was very important (potentially more important than any other person) and he couldn’t risk letting himself hurt him.

Some part of him said he loved Nico different than he loved the others, but then, he had thought that same thing about Annabeth. Nico wasn’t like Annabeth, Nico would take Percy’s ‘I’m not in love with you’ different. And then Percy’s arm twinged, and he knew he couldn’t be sure of what he felt.

He’d seen too much of himself in the past few months. He never thought he would have done what he’d done in order to end the war. He never thought he’d have broken up with Annabeth, or maybe she broke up with him. It was still unclear, actually. He never thought he’d have lost in purpose in life, or began to see just how damaged his friends were.

There was no telling whether he just wanted Nico because he needed to be needed, or because he needed to be needed by Nico.

His leg was going numb under the boy in question.

 

“Hey.” Thalia stepped into the alley’s entrance, silhouetted against the streetlight to where all Percy could see was the familiar, slim figure. She had a couple of trash bags hooked over her arms.

Percy looked up at her. “Hey. Got the stuff?”

“Most, but we may have a problem.” She scanned them, on the ground, Nico asleep over Percy’s legs, both of them scratched up and bloodied a bit. Riptide was wedged under Percy’s side, blade flat as not to cut him. “What happened to you?”

“The bowl was being watched by a couple of trolls posing as security guards. We had a little trouble.” What Percy didn’t say was that the two of them had barely escaped as unharmed as they were, because he was nearly useless with his sword. He had managed to make a water fountain burst and take out one, and they avoided the other until they made it out. “What do you mean, ‘trouble’?”

“I mean,” she dropped the bags and sat down near him, folding her legs, “we need to let it sit overnight, after mixing. Plus there are a couple of ‘unconventional’ ingredients.”

“Like what?”

“Like, this rare herb that only grows in one area. We need something from the place of one of ours’ claiming, and the blood of an innocent.”

Percy felt a swooping feeling in his stomach. Thalia herself looked sick.

“Nico.” Percy shook his leg to wake Nico up. He needed to be awake for this, plus it gave Percy a minute stop himself from hurling.

Demigods don’t hurt people, innocent people. Demigods protect innocent people. Besides, who was innocent, anymore?

“What?” Nico sat up off Percy’s legs, and he felt the rush of blood make pins-and-needles down his legs.

“We’ve got trouble.” Thalia told him.

“What else is new?” Nico rubbed his eyes (like a child, as it struck Percy) and scraped some dried blood off his cheek with a fingernail. “What’s up?”

“We need some unusual ingredients for the fear potion.”

“Okay. Define ‘unusual’?” Nico’s brow knitted and he looked from Thalia to Percy, flicking his eyes away quickly, and Percy felt an unusual tug behind his navel.

“The first two will be easy, but the third…” Thalia trailed off.

“We need the blood of an innocent.” Percy broke in; sensing Thalia wasn’t going to finish her point. She was staring off down the alley.

Nico’s brow knitted even further and his lip twisted up. “Of course we do.” He looked pensive for a minute, staring right at Percy but not seeming to see him, staring off and past. “How innocent?”

“What?” Percy and Thalia both asked, at the same time.

“How innocent?” He repeated, still staring blankly. “There are different measures of innocence. Sometimes it means having done no wrongs, sometimes it means having never intentionally caused anyone harm. It can refer to virginity or never having killed someone.”

Percy and Thalia exchanged glances. Percy had no idea which idea of innocence would suffice. Did they even know anyone who had done no wrong? All they’d need is a prick of the finger—blood for potions and oaths was a lot smaller amount than most movies suggested.

“Which is more likely to be the one we need?” Percy asked.

“I don’t know. let me consult my trivia knowledge of the meaning of innocence.” Nico said sarcastically, and scratched his chin. “It probably means ‘never having killed’. That’s what the Greek philosophers used as the meaning of innocence, unless it’s virginity. That’s not as likely.”

“We’re screwed.” Thalia declared. “Do we know anyone who’s never killed someone?”

Percy racked his brains. Nope. Everyone he knew had killed, either monsters or titans.

“Well,” Nico began, still absently picking at his bone sword, “it’s also likely that the idea of killing someone means killing a human. Like the not-monster and not-titan human.” He added, apparently seeing the other two’s faces.

“Ooooh.” Percy drawled.

“Oh, that’s easier!” Thalia shook her head.

“I know, give me a second.” Nico looked lost in thought. “The Greek made allowances for war and self-defense in their courts, so their idea of innocence would have been shaped by that. As long as the person killed wasn’t a friend, but an enemy.” Nico nodded, looking pleased.

“So we need to find someone who only killed enemies?” Percy repeated skeptically.

“If I understand the idea of the culture at the time, yes.”

“That’s easy, then.” That wasn’t as hard as Percy would have thought. It looked like they wouldn’t have to break into a nursery and stick a baby with a pin for innocent blood.

Thalia nodded too, before her eyebrow rose as she stared down at the ground between her legs, seeming conflicted.

 

“You know,” she started, coughed, and Percy felt the tingle on the back of his neck, that meant the survivalist part of him recognized something before the rest of him did—something distressing and dangerous and dark. “You know I can’t give that, right?”

She met Percy’s eyes after she spoke, and his chest gave a small, ache-y thud that must have been his heart feeling for her.

Percy looked away from her eyes, the eyes that were daring him to judge her for this.

“When,” He started, staring back down the other side of the alley, to the streetlights and the light, soft-coming dawn. He felt Nico shift near him and heard the rough scrape of the other boy’s jeans on the dirty-concrete ground. “When?” He phrased the word as a question, giving her an option. He wasn’t going to pry—she could give him a rough date and that’d be that, or she could expound if she wanted to.

“About a year ago.” She froze, and took a deep breath. “About a year ago, a Hunter got trapped in the crossfire. I— ” She broke off, again, and tried to take another breath, but it caught in her throat horribly. Percy saw the shaking, slight shaking in her shoulders, and scooted himself over. He knew her—she may have put on a tough act, and was without a doubt the toughest girl he knew, but everyone hurt and had a weak spot and her Hunters were hers. He pushed his mind away from what she was saying, not wanting to think about it. He wrapped his arm around her and tugged her in to his chest, let her curl around him and try to breath.

This was familiar. He’d done this a dozen times before—holding the hurting, comforting them. And while he’d done it so often it was a habit, an instinct even, he hadn’t done it enough. He knew there were others that died for his quest while he led them (not Jason don’t think of Jason don’t betray me now brain), he knew this. He knew the feeling of another body tucked around his while she shook like a leaf in the wind.

He felt Nico’s eyes on them both, drifting over them, because Nico was watching down both sides of the alley and keeping them safe.

Thalia shook her head. “I killed her.” She managed, voice sounding wrecked even if her face remained clear of tears. “She was a Hunter, one of my family members.

She wasn’t supposed to be there.” The words dripped with guilt and Percy couldn’t bear that, not now, not her.

“Hey.” He pulled her in closer to him, as tight as he could without hurting her. “You made a mistake. It’s not your fault.” Percy needed his other hand here, to do something soothing like rub her back or pat a shoulder, but he made do without it.

“She wasn’t supposed to be there.” She repeated.

“Not your fault.” He countered. He needed to get this through to her. “Mistakes happen.” He murmured against her short, dark hair.

After that, he just held her until she was done shaking. He knew she wouldn’t have let go of the guilt like that; it never happened after just one break-down.

Healing took a lot more effort than that, he mused, feeling the twinge in his fingers that were gone. When she stopped shivering she pushed herself up off him and rubbed her eyes, pointedly not meeting either of their eyes.

“Are you okay?” Nico spoke up, leaning forward. He tenderly pushed one of her longer strands of hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear, and Percy remembered he wasn’t the only person who cared about Thalia so much it hurt.

She nodded and the hair swung back, tracing her nose. “Thanks.” She said softly, and gave them both looks that screamed ‘drop it’.

“So, that leaves—”

“Nico.” Percy said flatly.

Both sets of eyes—bright blue and dark brown—fixed on him before falling to the floor. They knew he was right.

“Nico.” Percy repeated, staring down at his own hands and for a moment, behind his eyes, seeing the blood on them as clearly as if it was really there, staining his skin.

“We need a rare herb, found in a valley south. Nico, could you pop down there and get it?” Thalia spoke up, and pulled out a piece of paper with a list of instructions and a drawing of a plant.

“I’ll be back in a few hours. Iris-message me a location to meet.” Nico took the piece of paper from her and hesitated. He pushed himself up off the ground, turned, and set one hand on top of Percy’s head, carding his fingers through Percy’s hair. The soft warmth tingled down Percy’s scalp to his spine, temporarily stopping the phantom pain. Then he was gone and Percy looked at Thalia askance. She was pointedly looked at his now-mussed hair and down to his eyes.

“Why didn’t I get petted on?”

“I really don’t know.” Percy smiled. “I’m special, I guess.” Then he sobered a bit, remembering his unnecessarily harsh words of a couple hours ago, and the kiss that followed.

“Percy, be careful.”

“Of what?”

“You worry me, sometimes. Nico worries me, often. The two of you…” She smiled at him and flicked his nose. “You’re either going to kill each other, or fix each other.”

“I think…He’s helped fix me, a bit.” Percy said it out loud. He knew Nico had done a lot more than help ‘a bit’, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “But we may still kill each other.” He added.

“Great. I’ll find your skeletons, having strangled each other over the television remote.”

“Ha. Ha.” Percy fake laughed, and then picked out something from under his nails. “I will.”

“Will what?”

“Be careful. I’m not going, I mean, I’ll make sure I won’t—I can’t hurt Nico again. I don’t think I could do that, again, without hurting me more too.” God, I’m babbling. Percy mentally made fun of himself.

“Good.” Thalia said.

“Good?”

“That’s what I said.”

“So, while Nico’s off finding magical weeds, what’s our mission?” Percy asked.

“Something from the place one of us was claimed. Where were you claimed?”

“Uh,” Percy skittered around in his own mind for a moment. “In the creek at Camp.”

“Hm.” She looked bemused. “Do you think it still counts as the same water?”

“Same creek, even if it’s not the same exact droplets.” It was funny to think that after all that had happened to Camp, the creek still ran the same rough path.

“We don’t have a ride.” Thalia pointed out.

“We’re back in New York.” Percy said. “Hand me a Drachma?”

 

“Give me the eye!” Wasp screeched as the grey cab wheeled away from the side of the road, having deposited its sickly-looking passengers. The sun was up by then, so the streets buzzing past them had been dizzying clear.

“Where--” Thalia gagged, “did you hear of that cab?”

“Annabeth.” Percy wheezed. Lay all the blame on Annabeth, his usual tactic.

“The Grey Sisters?”

“I may have a tiny,” Percy held up two fingers, about an inch apart, as he began to stagger over the hills towards the camp, “death-wish.”

“You must.” Thalia rubbed her side, probably regretting having used the heavy industrial chains provided as seat-belts.

“We’re here, aren’t we?” Percy gestured to the familiar green rolls of ground, the house in the near distance. “Look, home sweet home!” He pointed toward to a pine tree on the closest hill, where a fleece hung, protected by a scaled lump of a dragon.

“That’s very funny.” She said sarcastically, but she sounded amused, and that was worth the bad joke.

The two had discussed their plan in the cab (or roller coaster, depends on if you’re going by technicalities or not) for how to approach the camp.

The fact was Percy wasn’t ready to be seeing the campers and the camp yet. Thalia had insisted he drop in and see Chiron while she went to the woods and got water from the creek, and he agreed. He hadn’t wanted her to go in the woods alone but she had fixed him with the ‘I’m a Hunter and a daughter of Zeus and was fighting monsters when you were in first grade’ look and he let her go. She was a big girl.

 

So he walked towards the familiar shape of the house, noticing the lack of people. He knew the camp schedule so it didn’t bother him; everyone would be down at the lake for another hour, watching the watersports. Percy was on a quest; other people’s lives didn’t pause.

He paused in the front door before pushing it open and making his way to Chiron’s office area. Once there, he paused in that doorway (doorways seemed to be becoming a good pausing place) and took in the scene.

Chiron was back in his wheelchair, going through papers. Papers were stacked in piles, everywhere, littering the floor. There was a satyr in a corner, writing down lots of lines while chewing on a different sheet of already-written-on paper. Percy was strongly reminded of Grover chewing through a tin can. The satyr noticed Percy and jumped up, but Chiron didn’t notice anything and just kept reading. He looked…good. Whole. Happy. Chiron had had it rough the past few years, and had finally gotten free of the wars, and was back to dealing with the normal camp-managing-type things. It had to boring, but less dangerous and world-threatening.

Percy cleared his throat, shifting from one foot to the other and pulling his backpack strap in closer to his body. It kept slipping, without an arm as an anchor.

Chiron slowly raised his head, and widened his eyes sharply when he saw Percy.

“Percy.” He named him, like he wasn’t sure about it. That hurt, like a dagger to the side.

“Hi.” Percy tried for a casual smile and failed miserably. The satyr scurried up and out the door. Percy stepped farther into the room, lifting his feet over a pile of papers labeled ‘outgoing expenses’. “Erm, how are you?”

“I’m fine. How are you?” Chiron barely paid attention to where he set the papers down, looking intently at Percy, scanning him up and down and checking for injuries besides the most obvious.

Percy opened his mouth to say ‘good’ and closed it again. This was Chiron, who found him at Yancy and taught him and saved him and he deserved better than that, if Percy could give it. “I’m working on it.” Percy answered truthfully.

Chiron smiled, looking sympathetic, but not in that hated ‘oh-poor-dear’ way but in the ‘I’ve been there’ way. It was different, and good. “So I’ve heard.” He gestured to the recently vacated chair, which Percy gratefully took. “How’s your quest going?”

“It’s coming along.” Percy chuckled. “Better than any of my others, I think.”

“You did have some difficult ones, didn’t you?” Chiron laughed softly. “I remember it sent you to Phobos, but what else have you figured out? Anything?”

Percy recited the prophecy, with a little more though than he should have taken, throwing in his own commentary where necessary.

“Three shall see fear and see fear bereft (see, that’s the Phobos part, he was missing his toy), two shall find the lost blade, and one shall be left (not actually sure about that part). One will see reward and one will see pain (pretty straightforward, if potentially painful), and three shall unite to lose it again (again, seems pretty straightforward).

“Of course,” he added, “prophecies are never straightforward.”

Chiron shrugged. “I’m sure you know not to dwell on it.”

“Yeah,” Percy looked down, chagrined, “I think I haven’t been thinking about it enough, you know? I’m just worried about Thalia, and Nico.” He knew he didn’t have to outline his fear to Chiron—Chiron knew his enough by now to know that he didn’t want to see them hurt on account of his quest.

“How are you doing, with this?” Chiron leaned forward and rested on one elbow, gesturing to Percy’s stump with the other.

“It’s problematic.” Percy admitted. There was no point denying it. “I’m getting used to it, I think. Not so much what it means, though.”

“That’s to be expected.” Chiron muttered, and Percy actually saw when he slipped into counselor-mode. He looked gentler, more empathetic, and open to listening as long as Percy would talk.

“It’s just…I don’t know what to do, with my life, now.” Percy said.

“You live, Percy.”

“…other than that. I like living too much to give that up.” That was true, too. Percy had thought, once, in the past, about taking his own life, but not for long. He loved life, loved seeing and feeling things. That’s why is shocked him when he knew Nico tried—how could you lose so much, to see the world so tinted dark, that emptiness would have felt better than pain?

“Have you thought about getting a job?”

“Yes. I was thinking, maybe, a fisherman or something. It wouldn't be a lot of money,” Percy acknowledged, “but it’d be fun, I think.

“That’s all that matters.” Chiron promised, before changing tracks. “How are the nightmares?”

Percy shifted. “Who said I was having nightmares?” He mentally ran through the list: Annabeth, Nico, Thalia, the whole of the Ares cabin…looking at it, it wasn’t so suspicious that Chiron knew.

“I guessed.” Chiron said. That wasn't what Percy had just assumed. “So how are they?”

“Bad. I don’t usually remember them, but when I do—” Percy repressed a shudder at the thought of the things his subconscious had been bringing him: dead friends, drakons, and wars.

Chiron nodded, once again sympathetic in the good way.

Percy eyed the door as he heard footsteps and hoped it was Thalia. Even if Chiron wasn't pushing him, Percy needed to get away. He loved the guy, but he was a presence, and Percy didn’t want to talk—or think—about the topic any further.

It was. The door creaked open and Thalia stuck her head in, shaking a vial of clear liquid with a little dirt and mud condensing at the bottom.

“Percy?” She queried, the corners of her mouth turning up at Chiron.

“Ready.” Percy stood up and wove through the maze of stacks. He stopped near Chiron, however, and stuck out a hand. Chiron took it, they shook, and Percy ducked out of the room before he got emotional.

“Well, we’ve got the water!” Thalia said, faking cheeriness. “How’d your talk go?”

“Good.” Percy said, distracted, as he took the vial from Thalia and looked at it. If Nico got those plants, this was the last ingredient. Tomorrow, the day after, the quest would be over.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: We do finally get to confront some fears next time.  
> I like build and tension, okay?  
> Tobi.


	10. The Sword (About Freaking Time)

Previously;  
“Well, we’ve got the water!” Thalia said, faking cheeriness. “How’d your talk go?”  
“Good.” Percy said, distracted, as he took the vial from Thalia and looked at it. If Nico got those plants, this was the last ingredient. Tomorrow, the day after, the quest would be over.  
  
  
Thalia Iris-messaged Nico in the Big House bathroom while Percy sat on the porch. Nobody walked around, because it was mid-day and all the campers were fighting or training or doing whatever it was that was the main activity this time of day.

Percy held the tiny vial of water up and studied it. The vial was something Thalia had nicked—ahem, borrowed—in her search for ingredients. It was a couple of inches tall and cylindrical, and it seemed to Percy like one of those perfume samples that usually smelled like old lady but seemed to spawn in the bottom of his mother’s purse when he was a child.

The water inside swirled around like a funnel, a tiny water hurricane, as he toyed with it absently. He was holding it still in his hand but used his power to make a whirlpool, tossing up the grains of sand and dirt into the water, making it cloudy.

Cloudy, like his mind.

This water was the last, or next-to-last, thing they needed to make this potion. Or, more accurately, it was the thing he needed to make the potion. The others were on this quest, but it was ultimately his job, he was the leader.

He stared through the water, through the clearer swirls of water as it began to settle and the pollutants settled to the bottom again. It magnified the light coming at him, into his eyes. It burned a bit, but not in a bad way. Or maybe it was burning in a bad way, and Percy wanted that.

He pushed the water around with his power again and it stirred, swam, the grime sweeping up from the bottom through the water of the place he was claimed and called home for so long like smoke curving up through the sky.

It was odd how many similarities there were between the water and the sky.

Percy felt the sudden, irrational urge to spill the water, to make it expand so far that the vial shattered, to watch the water fall between the boards at his feet. What in Hades?, he demanded of himself, and shoved the vial deep into his backpack.

He didn’t need this, to be scaring himself, not now. That fear was not one he could deal with.

Percy stared out over the hills, the strawberry fields growing pink with the fruit. He remembered Katie growling years ago about how the plants kept growing all over the place, not in the neat rows she wanted them in. That led to him musing about his older friends, the ones he lost contact with over the course of the fighting and the subsequent living. Last he heard Katie had been planning to go into something to do with business and agriculture, and possibly an organic food company. Come to think of it, the Stoll brothers had been planning on going in with her on it, as they had at some point become pretty shrewd businessmen. It was probably the poker face the two were capable of. Malcolm, Annabeth’s half-brother, had been going to MIT, he knew because Annabeth had bragged about it. He kept meaning to ask about how her dad and step-mom and brothers were doing, but it had slipped his mind the last times they had spoken.

It was odd to think of the other, finishing up high school and going to college or work and making their own way through the world. That didn’t happen often, but when it did, the lucky demigods usually made names for themselves. It was too easy to lose them in the bustle of the ‘real’ world out there, if that’s what it could be called.

Where’s Thalia going to tell Nico to meet us?, Percy wondered idly. There were only a few option he could think of, unless she decided on some random street out in the middle of nowhere, which would be a good idea. Then again, it’d be hard to get Nico to meet them in exactly the right place, if they went with a random street.

As it turned out, Thalia had given Nico the address of some intersection on the East side. Percy and Thalia took a (normal, non-magic) cab the spot and found Nico there.

Percy laughed quietly and elbowed Thalia when they stepped out of the cab. Nico was leaning up against the gritty-brick wall with his arms crossed and his eyes closed, but Percy could see the faint glimmer of a stark black handle in his hoodie pocket and could see the way his eyes flitted beneath his eyelids. He was trying to look casual but Percy could see how on-edge he was. With his arms crossed defensively and his backpack and dark clothes, he looked like a no-good, like he was trouble. Then again, he was, so maybe that was an apt description. It was a miracle the cops hadn’t been called on him.

“Do you have the goods?” Percy mock whispered as they drew closer, like he was about to make an illicit trade or something.

“You got the money?” Nico retorted.

“Nope, but I’ve got some magic water.”

“Guys.” Thalia glanced around like she was worried they were going to be overheard and searched by the cops, which would be a very bad deal given the amount of weaponry and borrowed (fine, stolen) goods they had on them.

“I’ve got it.” Nico pulled his other arm out of his hoodie pocket and rummaged around in his bag, pulling out a Ziploc baggie of drooping, wilted leaves. Yep, definitely need to avoid getting searched.

“Okay, then. What’s our next step?” Percy turned to Thalia and she shook her head, and he remembered this was his quest and he should probably act a little more in charge or something. “Ah, our next step is to…find a place to mix this up.” Percy indicated the various things they had collected.

“Where would that be?”

“Back alley?”

“Kind of exposed, you know?” Percy thought about it. “We need to be out of the way, because we may as well use that same place for taking the potion.”

“Ooo-kay.” Nico drawled, wrinkling up his nose. The cogs in Thalia’s head seemed to be turning rapidly.

“Abandoned building?”

“Great, but we’d need to find one.” Percy pointed out.

“Let’s find one.” Thalia shrugged. “The mix needs to sit overnight, remember? We’ve got plenty of time.”

“Then let’s find one.”  


Four hours later, the three sat around with growling stomachs, having discovered a few things.

They discovered the second floor of an old apartment building. Due to a cave-in in one corner and water stains all over the floor it had been empty for some time. Percy decided they were in no (or insignificant) danger and they had set up.

They discovered that, despite the unusual ingredients, it was pretty easy to make. They threw the majority of the stuff into the bowl, set carefully in the middle of the floor, and mixed it up with a spoon. Then they added the water, and the herb, and Nico dragged a blade across his palm, releasing a few drops of vivid blood into the creamy mixture.

They discovered that Nico gets sick when faced with stirring gross-looking food. So he sat, retching, in the corner while Thalia and Percy took turns stirring until it was blended smoothly. It was disgusting looking—and smelling—with a brown-red color and a putrid, sulfurous smell. Percy hoped to gods that it would settle a bit before he had to choke some down.

“Well, that’s that.” Percy peered down at the pretty dish and not-so-pretty potion, grimacing.

He scooted on his rear until his back hit the wallpapered wall. Thalia followed, dragging her heels in a screeching way.

They sat there in silence, listening to the wind whistling across the cave-in section on the other side of the room like a breeze across the open end of a glass bottle.  


“This is it, I guess.” Percy peered down into his cup of, well, whatever this thing was. Potion seemed very bedtime-story-ish and soup would have been soupier. Calling it juice would have been a blow to all fruits.

Luckily it did settle down a bit—while it stayed the same color the smell toned down to something faintly musty, like attics. Which was more than bearable considering what it contained.

Heck, this had Nico’s blood in it. Plus water from the creek where kids splashed in and through, and some random plant from the wilderness, and raw eggs. He was likely to get food poisoning.

He tipped it back and took his first gulp.

Ew. Ew. Ew.

Repressing the urge to spit it out on the floor, Percy tried to clap a hand over his mouth but couldn’t because he was holding the rest of his drink. He forced himself to not acknowledge the rotten, old taste that scoured his taste buds and swallow, twice.

“Bleh.” He stuck his tongue out, half expecting his tongue to be gone. Thalia was gagging on hers still, and Nico had turned green with reddish splotches. Percy lifted up his cup and drained the last of it. It was easier to get down this time, he lied to himself.

He bent and set the cup down on the floor with a firm click. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, wishing the residual taste would go away.

“That was gross.” Thalia managed as she tapped her cup down next to Percy’s, quickly followed by Nico’s.

“When does it work?” Percy heard Nico say the words, but they faded away into the air around him as his surroundings spun and resettled, different.

He couldn’t see the other two, couldn’t move, and couldn’t speak. With a horrible, lurching feeling in his stomach, he recognized where he was—grass and dark sky and silhouettes.

No, he thought, begged his own mind. No, this isn’t what the potion was supposed to do.

Because Thalia had said, because her girls had told her that this potion would show them their biggest fears and not make them re-live the things that made them afraid, like this.

Percy knew that was what was happening when he saw his mom in the Minotaur’s grip, finely detailed. It was like he was back in that instant, frozen in time. He could see the blades of grass under his feet and the dark sky and his mother’s terrified face and he remembered.

It was the first time he thought he might lose her.

If Percy hadn’t have been solidified, stuck where he was, he would have thrown up for the terror, the wrong, because this wasn’t what he was prepared for. His pulse was beating in his ears and behind his eyes and at his wrists. His own breathing was harsh and it was the only thing he could hear. He couldn’t draw his sword, and he had never felt so helpless. Useless, which he hadn’t thought had been a fear until recently but look, it had roots back to the very, very beginning of his story when someone (probably a Fate, those bitches) decided it was time to pull the wild card that was Perseus into play.

And he was utterly helpless, he realized, as the world swam around him again before doubling back in its efforts.

He was standing in the kitchen with Nico, eating a sandwich. He was curled up around Nico in bed, and Percy mentally shook himself because he hadn’t realized he had been grabbing onto Nico’s t-shirt when he slept fitfully. He was standing with Nico on a ranch out of the Labyrinth, and fighting next to Nico at Camp, out of the Labyrinth.

Memories of Nico swept across the screen of his surroundings like a stop-motion film. He saw how many times he’d needed Nico, just needed Nico to need him. He couldn’t bring himself to feel ashamed at that, because he deserved that fear.

Then it was a well, and he wasn’t standing this time but suspended neck-deep in water in Rome.

He saw himself trying to keep his head afloat, and Piper, and Jason, and he saw how afraid he was of sinking and how afraid they were and it was wrong, and, oh, god, Jason and he couldn’t do that—he tried to send out a prayer to any god that would listen but it was like an echo as it bounced back at him.

The tide of a different time rolled over him as the bile rose in his throat, as he gagged because he couldn’t breathe. His knees crumpled beneath him and he fell to them, luckily keeping his balance because his arm wasn’t working. Then he was kneeling in Tartarus, and it was endless dark in any direction. There was a wall of fire and Annabeth looking like a corpse and Bob, gone. Then the light flickered out and it suddenly struck him like a blow to the head that he had never feared the dark as much as what it meant, because it meant oblivion and ending and not knowing what was sneaking up behind you.

Because he couldn’t see if he was alone or if there were others.

Because he couldn’t know if he was alive or dead, and if this was like death was like…

Percy heard a high, keening noise he dimly noticed as himself, protesting against this, shrieking softly into the dark as the world faded into a different perspective, a different lifetime nearly.

No, Percy muttered again, as his heart clenched and then shattered in his chest, and he felt the cold shards of heart pierce his lungs as he couldn’t draw breath.

There were bodies lying here and there on the ground, indistinguishable, holding that air of anonymity given to the dead by the living. They had all been people with lives and dreams nand friends and all of them had given that up, made a sacrifice play most of them hadn’t even understood, because someone said ‘this is what’s right’. There were plaques on the wall of the Big House at Camp memoralizing them and Percy counted them, one day, but in the end he couldn’t even keep himself together much less keep track of that many lost souls. He barely remembered there were other people there; that it wasn’t just him and Jason locked in that cruel moment.

Piper was there and was not looking at Jason but at Octavian who died by her hand, because it must have been easier to see her own guilt than the broken boy.

Neither Hazel nor Frank had been there, they had to be told later about it, by Leo of all people. That was a small silver lining to the cloud, and faux silver at that, like a silver-y spray-paint streak across the wall of a bad neighborhood. Seeing it would have broken Hazel beyond repair—she was a warrior, but she was a friend first, and that was something the rest of them had deadened themselves to. She was broken, anyway, but she was spared this break.

The thing about war is that there aren’t winners or losers left behind. There were just the dead and the damaged left to face the world again.

Thalia had broken her leg in two places and was twisted up, back arched in agony, with that girl of hers named Clara brushing tears away. Clara had tried so hard but Thalia wasn’t suffering for the snap of bones but the quick slide of steel that had killed her baby brother and that was something no one could undo.

Percy hadn’t seen Nico the first time around, he had been consumed and distraught and Nico was but a sideline-figure, a shadow in the corner. This time, watching it with fresh (albeit, streaming) eyes, he was Nico of the past wearing blood-soaked clothes with a skull tucked under his arm, staring disbelieving at the body on the ground. He had known Jason, and loved Jason in that way Nico loved very few people, because Jason had been the anti-Nico in a way and it seemed to Percy that they understood something, the two of them, something that was incomprehensible to him. And Nico was seeing the life leave the eyes of the only other person who understood that private thing, and Percy was reminded of how brutal he was for never having noticed Nico standing off to the side.

He saw himself, a bit away, bent down and crumpled to the ground, sobbing into the earth and digging at the ground with fingernails that were bloody. Riptide was blessedly out of his hands, discarded like the killing thing it was, because if Percy had held that blade one minute longer he might have just run it through himself to where his own blood mingled with Jason’s blood on the blade.

Jason’s blood on the blade.

Jason’s blood on his blade.

Jason’s blood on his hands.

The blood Jason had wanted him to stop on his hands, his blade, his clothes, Jason’s cheek, swiped that way when Piper had rubbed it away.

“Please.” Jason said that word three times, first commanding like the brave soldier he had always tried to be, and then pleading when Percy hadn’t because Percy was a coward, then finally whispered like a prayer to anyone who could have heard and Percy had folded because he was weak as wet paper in the wind.

Luke had taught him once—back before Luke had gone his own way that may have been wrong but was in far too much of a grey area for Percy to judge—that even when you hurt, when you kill someone, you don’t make them suffer too much.

You don’t torture them needlessly.

You don’t hurt them if they’re not fighting you back.

You don’t put a blade in their stomach, like the gods-damned monster of a demigod that had hurt Jason did.

Percy never wanted to be in a world where a boy who betrayed his camp knew that much more about honor than a leader of one. Percy didn’t want to be a part of that, wanted to go back to canoe races and school field trips and getting picked on in classes and even the Titan war, thinking he was going to die every half-a-second, even that was better than this, than futile bloodshed and cold-heartedness.

Athena was right all those years ago, about his fatal flaw, because through all the changes he went through one thing was still true: he would sacrifice the world to save his friends.

But he couldn’t trade the world for Jason, even if he wanted to.

So he killed the part of himself that thought he was a hero in order to save Jason a few minutes suffering.

As his world started to get fuzzy around the edges—maybe because he couldn’t breathe, but more likely because he was going to pass out from whatever level of stress and fear he was at, seeing this all stopped before him like a three-dimensional photograph from Hell.

Just before the blurriness of the world drew into the center of his vision, obscuring everything, he had a thought.

‘If this doesn’t draw that sword in, I will be severely pissed.’ He just had enough mental fortitude to see the flash of a blade in the corner of his eye that wasn’t one that belonged to anyone in the frame before the beautiful dying light rolled over and he was gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter is short, but I'm crying, so screw that.  
> I want to hear what you guys think.  
> I love you and I'm not just saying that because I'm irrationally emotional right now.  
> Tobi.


	11. A Drastic Change Of Pace.

"Percy?" He knew that voice. That voice was one he was well-accustomed to. Slowly, he started to be aware of his surroundings. He kept his eyes closed for fear of seeing things he didn't want to see. The floor was under him again, hardwood, not soft and grassy. Percy felt a tightening and itching on his cheeks. Tear stains. In what he hoped was a subtle move, he swiped a hand up to wipe at the dampness.

"Percy." The voice was more insistent this time.

"Nico." Percy managed, peeling his sticking lips apart to answer, keeping his eyes closed.

"We've got the sword."

The world spun, nauseating, when Percy opened his eyes.

Thalia was standing off to the side, eyes red and puffy. She was holding the sword in hands with bloodied knuckles, like she'd been hitting something.

Nico was kneeling on the floor near him, looking worse-for-wear. Frankly his eyes looked dead, unfeeling, unflinching.

"That potion was shit." Thalia said. She looked guilty and worried.

"How long have I been out?"

"Not long. I mean, I passed out too. Nico didn't, though. Nico?" Thalia shifted the sword, anxiously.

"About ten minutes." Nico's voice was rough and brittle, and Percy knew he'd been screaming because that was Nico's nightmare voice, his vocal pattern after waking from a loud, shrieking dream.

Percy stomach turned and he gagged, stomach trying to bring something up but nothing coming.

"Are you..." Percy tried again, not looking at either of them, "Are you guys alright?"

"Does it look like it?" Nico said coldly, then added, softer, "We're fine. Just shaken."

"Yeah." Percy's head thunked back against the floor. "We got the sword."

"About that..." Nico licked his lips, nervously. "I don't think this is over."

"Sorry?" Thalia gripped the sword and walked over. Refusing to be towered over by the others, Percy pushed himself up with his arm.

"The quest. It feels like we're missing something, or forgetting something. Plus, the prophecy."

"Three shall see fear and see fear bereft, Two shall find the lost blade, and one shall be left. One will see reward and one will see pain, And three shall unite to lose it again." Percy recited absently, before frowning.

That didn't make sense. They'd seen fear and seen fear bereft, they'd found the lost blade--none of the rest had been done, and they'd pretty much finished the quest.

"Your right." Percy said, dismayed. "Something's off."

"Nico?" Thalia questioned, after a moment of silence.

Nico still looked empty, like a shell, like the personality of the boy was gone and the eyes that housed him was left.

"Nico." Percy pressed.

When he got no response, Percy panicked. "No, Nico, no." He muttered, feeling his heart kick up. He couldn't lose Nico. What if the potion had poisoned him? What if the fears were too much? What if, what if, ran through his mind. Thalia had dropped the sword and was kneeling next to him, guiding a limp Nico to lay down.  
Percy shifted so his weight was off his arm and pressed two fingers to the dark boy's pulse point.

'Please, dad. Let him be okay. Hades, Aphrodite, anyone." He sent up, desperately searching for a thump at his fingers denying what his body was refusing to consider.

"Percy." Thalia pleaded, sounding wrecked. She probably saw Jason, too, and now Nico was limp and empty before them.

'One shall be left.'. The words rang through Percy's head, and he pushed a little harder on the soft part beneath Nico's jaw, still praying for a sign.

Beat. Beat. Beat.

"I've got a pulse." Percy's voice broke, as he announced it, told Thalia, whose breath whooshed out as she let herself breath again.

"Thank the gods."

Percy cradled Nico's head in his lap and placed his hand over his lips, feeling for a breath. After a terrifying moment he felt a soft exhale against his palm.  
"And he's breathing."

"...What do you think happened?" Thalia said, slowly. They both watched Nico's chest rise and fall minutely.

Percy just shook his head, and shook it again.

"What are we going to do?" Thalia pressed.

"Damn it." Percy dropped his head slightly. At length, "We take the sword to Phobos."

"What about Nico?"

"He's, I dunno, sleeping?"

"I don't know, Percy."

"I don't either, Thalia, but what else are we supposed to do?"

"Let him rest, maybe?"

"We don't know how long he'll be like this! We take the sword to Phobos, then we work on getting Nico out of this." Percy kept shoving the part of himself that declared that plan 'bad' down.

"Thalia." Percy looked down at Nico. He looked peaceful and it was easy to pretend he was sleeping and not comatose or whatever the hell was really going on here.

"He may just be catching up on some rest."

The look on her face said she believed that about as much as he did, maybe less.

"Well, maybe not. But he's in trouble. We just need to get him somewhere he can rest.” Hopefully. If not, Percy was in deep trouble and he may have to hit something. Possibly himself, or Nico.

“How are we going to carry him?” Thalia rubbed her knuckles. “He's too heavy for us to haul all that distance.”

“Not to mention the possibility of us being taken for murderers.” Percy ran his hand absently over Nico's forehead, checking his temperature. It may have been his imagination, but he seemed warmer than usual. That was not a good sign.

At this point, Percy's mind hit a mental road sign.

'Protect Nico.' That was the blatantly, brightly hued sign's message.

Percy planned out an idea. It would work, for a while, and while neither of the other two would be very happy about it, it would work. That was the point.

Percy wiggled out from under Nico and began to dig through his pockets, until he tracked down a golden drachma.

“Thalia, do you trust me?”

“Yes.” She replied immediately. “Is your plan stupid?”

“You'll think so.”

“Oh boy.”

“I just need you to know...trust me. Please.”

He went to the window and stole some water from the drain hanging to the left, spraying it up with his power, tossed the coin through, and prayed to Iris.

After a moment he was faced with an up-close, like looking through a magnifying glass from a few inches away, of an empty, porous eye socket.

Behind him, Thalia shifted, presumably getting into an attack stance. Percy waved his hand back at her, telling her it was fine and they were not in danger. He knew the owner of that skeletal orifice. Slowly it backed away until it was a full view of a skull, in dapper top hat.

“Jeeves!”

“Sir Jackson. All is well, I assume?”

“Ah, not quite.”

Again, that skull belonging to Nico's servant displayed an unusual amount of emotion for having no flesh, at once appearing disapproving and threatening. That was—yet again—a twist in Percy's gut. Guilt got pushed to the back of his mind, because guilt wasn't going to help Nico, not right now.

“He's not in any great trouble, Jeeves.” Percy insisted. It wasn't lying if he didn't know it wasn't true, right? “Can you get here, quickly?”

“Address?”

Percy gave it to him, and paced the ten minutes it took the dead man to get there.

“What was that?” Thalia had asked, as soon at the message had ended.

“Jeeves. He works for Di Angelo.” Percy didn't look at Thalia or Nico. He couldn't even say his name.

“He's...”

“A skeleton, yes.” Percy cut her off.

Thalia shook her head and looked over at Nico, resting at odd angles. “He sure keeps strange friends.”

“Hey, now, we count under there.” Percy joked, half-heartedly.

“That's my point.”

 

“You're not serious.”

“Yes, Thalia, I am. You and me are taking the sword to Phobos. Nico is staying here,” Percy stamped a foot on the floor of the abandoned place, for emphasis, “and Jeeves will guard him, until he feels better or we come back for him, whichever comes first.”

“We can't leave him.”

“We can, we will, it's the kinder thing to do and the only logical one.”

“He's going to be furious.” She said, almost a whisper.

“Don't you think I know that? It'll keep him out of the line of fire.” Percy whispered back.

He told the same thing to Jeeves, who didn't disagree with the plan, because he seemed to be more geared towards keeping Nico safe over keeping Nico happy. Jeeves was upset—as much as Jeeves every seemed to be upset—over the fact that Nico needed protecting at all.

Percy left with Thalia and the sword, leaving Nico, unconscious, in Jeeves' very capable hands.

The road to Phobos' house was long and quiet. It was awkward, for the first few buses, but eased up as the tension drained from Thalia's shoulders. Percy could tell whatever hell she'd been through by way of potion had been making her antagonistic towards his plan for leaving Nico behind.

It was likely she was upset with Percy, too, which would make the both of them.

They arrived at a bus stop they knew, headed down the street they remembered, and stopped in front of the wrecked-looking house.

They knocked on the door and were admitted to the dusty, messy home.

They were ambushed.

Percy took a punch to the side, then the head, and the distressed nerves of his shoulder.

 

 

“Thalia.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm a fool.”

“It's not that bad.”

“Oh?” Percy wriggled his torso, ropes digging into his skin. They had bound his entire upper body to the chair in loops, because he didn't have a second arm to bind behind him. “This feels bad.”

Percy dropped his head to where his chin rested on his collarbone. They'd been sitting here for a couple hours now, and there had been no sign of Phobos since he'd gotten the jump on them. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

'one will see reward, and one will see pain.'

Here he'd been, seeing the solution to the second line and he hadn't really thought about the third.

Someone was going to get hurt. 'Please let it be me.'

“That explains the prophecy.” Percy said out loud.

Thalia struggled against the ropes.

“It's okay,” Percy tried to calm her down.

“No, it's not.” She gasped, chair shrieking against the floor. She sounded like she was about to panic, and Percy couldn't deal with that.

“Thalia. Thalia. Thalia.” On and on he repeated her name, until the chair stopped shrieking and she stopped gasping.

“Oh, Percy.”

“What?” She didn't answer, for a moment.

“I'm sorry.” When she finally spoke she spoke quietly.

“For what?”

“I can't tell you.”

Percy felt the ache in his stomach, his chest, his lungs, because there was something she was keeping from him and he was having trouble breathing, a bit.

Choices. They weighed on him. Sometimes he had to make these conscious choice he didn't want to, without enough information. He'd chosen to do so.

So he picked Thalia even if he knew he didn't have all the information, even if he didn't know what he was picking her over.

“Apology accepted.” He tried to turn his head to look at her, but the angle wasn't right for anything less than an owl. “I'll always take your apologies, Thalia.”

“Oh, Percy.” She laughed lowly, without humour. “You'll change your mind.”

“Nope.”

“Yep.”

“Nope.”

It was childlike banter, back and forth. It brought back memories of when they used to bicker in the ring or before Capture-The-Flag.

Percy didn't want to think of what she was sorry for. He was sure he'd find out, soon enough—he could wait for a bit.

“Do you remember the first time we played Capture-The-Flag?”

“Boy, do I! The Oracle came down to see me, at the creek—”

“I wanted that quest so badly!”

“—And you hit me, with the creek—”

“You hit me with electricity!”

“And we went after Annabeth, before you hitch-hiked into our group.”

“It was Annabeth! What was I supposed to do?”

“You would've gone to the ends of the earth for her.” Thalia mused.

“You, too.” Percy retorted. “You let yourself be nearly-killed, and then turned into a tree.”

“That I did. Most boring years of my life, those were.”

The two of them laughed, softly at first, then louder, as panic and stress gave way to dopamine in that way it does.

When things fell silent again, the tone turned more somber.

“You and Annabeth...?” Thalia queried.

“I loved her. Love her.” Percy corrected. His love for Annabeth was still alive and well.

Thalia's chair scooted, scraping the floor. “why'd you two break up? I've wanted to ask, but it seemed kind of rude.”

“We didn't love each other like that. I thought I did—maybe I did.” Percy shrugged because he didn't know. “She's my best friend. I'll always love her.”

“But you didn't love her like that.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Damn, you're screwed.”

“Eh?”

“Everyone—and I mean everyone—thought you two would make it. Be the happy couple that survived.”

“We were. We're happy, we survived...we're just not a couple, anymore.”

“You think you'll ever find someone, someday?”

Percy knew what she was asking. She wasn't asking if he'd ever find someone—she was asking if he thought there was a chance of someone like them finding someone to be happy with.

Again, a choice.

Again, Thalia.

“Sure. I believe it. I mean, I thought I was going to be happy with Annabeth. I think there's somebody out there for everyone. Including me, I hope.”

“I don't know.” Thalia announced.

“Tell me,” Percy licked his lips, wondering whether he was really going to ask her about this, “will you tell me about Luke? Before, I mean?”

The room was quiet, for a second.

“He was fun. He liked to goof around.” Percy smiled at the wistfulness in her voice, wished he had gotten to see more of Luke, when they weren't on opposite sides of a war. He didn't ask her if she loved him, because he knew. “He was good with a sword. As good as you, I think.”

“Me now, or me before I got chomped?”

“Before. You were good, Percy, really good.”

“I know.” It was a reminder every time he brushed his hands along the ballpoint pen that housed Riptide. He would never be that good again, because he needed two hands to stabilize and he didn't have them.

“Now I get to ask you some stuff.” Thalia turned the tables quickly, and he played along. He could always just not answer her.

“Shoot. We've got time to kill.”

“Are you gay?”

“Whoa, right out of the firing pen!” Percy declared. Then, he stopped to think about it.

Was he?

He wasn't, right?

Then again, he was speaking to himself in a questioning tone of voice, which suggested he didn't know.

“Percy?” Thalia prompted.

“Shh, I'm thinking!” He snapped back. Leave it to Thalia to interfere with his crisis. He thought about Annabeth, and Rachel, who were both really pretty and soft. But he could see the appeal of people like Nico or Malcolm or the guy who makes sandwiches down the street. He just liked...people.

“I don't know.”

“What do you mean, you don't know? What's there not to know?”

“Does it matter?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Is there a less distressing question you have for me?”

“Can you promise me something?”

“What is it?”

“Don't hate me?”

“I promise.” Percy didn't think about it, but then he bit his tongue and answered more truthfully.

“I love you, Thalia, and that's not going to change. Even if I hate you a little, I love you.”

“Love you too.”

 

 

“Well, isn't this great?” Phobos strode into the room. Percy looked up at him disdainfully.

“'Great' isn't the word I'd pick.”

“Everyone wants to be great!” Phobos insisted. He walked around the room, to go towards Thalia. “I want to be great, anyway.”

He smelled like beer, from what Percy knew of the smell. Smelly Gabe had smelled like beer a lot. 'Not only is the dude messed up, he's drunk and messed up.', Percy said sarcastically in his head.

“Everyone wants something, have you noticed?” Phobos went on in his monologue. Thalia was back to the rough breathing behind him. He tried to telepathically will her to calm down, relax, because whatever was going to come was going to come.

“I take it back.” Thalia sounded scared, regretful, and it sounded like she knew whatever she was pleading not to happen was going to happen.

“You can't.” Phobos said silkily as he slid back into Percy's view. He turned to address Percy himself. “Hello, gimpy.”

“Now, that's just low.” Percy grumbled.

“No, that's really not.” Phobos grinned slowly. “You want to hear low? Low is rushing off to a quest soon as your well enough to walk around.

“Low is selling out your friends for a deal with a minor god.” Phobos leaned over Percy and aimed the grin at Thalia, who gasped.

'No.' Percy thought.

No, that wasn't right.

Percy gut pooled with ice, replacing the worrying sickness with a cold lack of emotion.

“Low,” Phobos went on, seeming indifferent to Percy's internal struggles, “is getting a few demigods together to get you back the sword you're going to use to do all sorts of nasty things to all sorts of nice people, and getting a bonus along with it, courtesy of your girlfriend, here.”

“Not his girlfriend!”

“What are you talking about?” It was his—Percy's—voice, but he didn't seem aware of asking it.

“I'm talking about this.” Phobos smiled cruelly, pulled a knife from his back jeans pocket. Then, he hitched up Percy's shirt as much as he could around the ropes, (ignoring Percy's loud protests) and placed the tip of the blade to the skin, at the bottom of his ribs.

To Percy it was naught but a cold, sharp prick on his abdomen, a mark of who held the power in the room.

Thalia had made some deal with this dude, for something Percy didn't know of yet, which put her higher up on the totem pole than him.

He was officially the weakest person in the room, which was something he hadn't felt in a long, long time.

Even when he was the darkest, most twisted person in the room, he was powerful. Not now.

He felt a little, tiny trickle of warm blood that ran along the seam of his stomach muscle, pooling down to his waistband, as Phobos ran the knife, digging it into his skin and flesh.

“Thalia?” Percy knew he wasn't going to get anywhere with Phobos. So he tried for the only person of the three in the room he trusted.

“I'm sorry.” Her voice didn't waver, which was a sure sign she'd slipped into Hunter mode. “He made me an offer. If I let him have some of your blood, he'd release us from our nightmares.”

“Your nightmares.” Percy repeated, dumbly. This wasn't computing, not yet.

“Us Hunters.” He could tell from her voice and from the way Phobos (who was currently scooping up some of his blood into a vial, like a mad scientist) twitched that she was glaring at him.

Thalia had a killer glare.

“Us Hunters have been haunted by our worst fears for months.” Thalia continued.

“Because Phobos wanted to marry one of my girls. She didn't want him in return.”

“So you made a deal.” Percy winced around the pain on his torso. And his head. “He'd stop with the fear attacks if you gave him...what, exactly?”

“He'd stop with the fear attacks and he'd leave Clara alone, if I just got you here and let him take some of your blood.”

“I'm cool with that, I've got plenty—but why do you need my blood?” That last part was aimed at Phobos, who was sliding the vial away.

Thalia was already forgiven. Percy knew the drive to help family—if it'd been Annabeth, Nico, any of the campers, he would've turned himself over in a heartbeat to keep them from being afraid.

It was worrying because there was nothing special in his blood.

So why, why, why did this crazy dude want his blood?

“Because I don't like you, Percy Jackson. You got uppity, and look where it got you!” He poked at Percy's shoulder, at the soft part where his arm was missing.  “So, I give you nightmares for the rest of your life. And—I get the sword, which is going to be a lot of fun, let me tell you.”

Oh.

Oh, that was not good.

  
It was a couple hours later when they were released, fairly unharmed.

They got to the bus stop when someone broke the silence.

“I'm so sorry.”

“Me too.”

Loaded, riding, nervous. Twitching hands where Percy wanted to brush Thalia's hair back but didn't, because all she had to have done was ask and he would've given his blood to her for Phobos, because he was dealing with nightmares anyway.

But she hadn't asked.

Either she hadn't thought he would, or she hadn't even considered it.

That hurt more than the cut.

They were off the bus, waiting at the stop when the Iris message appeared, shimmering, in front of them.

“Jeeves?”

“Sir Jackson, I regret to inform you that Sir Di Angelo has not woken. In fact, he seems to have taken rather a bad turn. When is your expected arrival time?”

Percy saw Jeeves, standing tall and stately, and Nico in the back of the frame, curled on himself and shaking like he was cold, blood running from the corner of his nose.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: this chapter. Eh. Not all that happy with it, might go over it again. I lost all my notes when the motherboard on my laptop died, I'm currently working of a Pad. It's small, not optimum, and I like to complain.
> 
> Cliffhanger!
> 
> Tobi.


	12. Comfort Is Creepy.

 

"Percy..." 

"We'll talk about it later, Thalia." Percy gritted out. They were on the bus, heading to the place they left Nico, where Nico was bleeding and possibly dying. 

“What are we going to do?” Thalia prodded for a game plan, one Percy didn't have, because his brain was somewhere else, somewhere he couldn't imagine. He was still scattered to the winds, everything had come so fast: reliving Jason's death, Thalia's betrayal (which he's still sorting into his brain. He kept forgetting, until he looked over at her, all large angles and unashamed, and he was furious, and it took a second before he remembered why he's mad at her, but then he knew he loves her and he'll forgive her, in a bit.), and then Nico, who's in trouble and a while away from them yet. 

Percy blew out a puff of breath, like a smoker would do, out the corner of his mouth. After a moment of frozen, indecisiveness, he tapped the woman next to him and asked to borrow her phone. 

A shaking hand pressed the buttons. 

  1. 1\. 1.




“Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?”

“My...cousin. He called me, he's hurt.” Percy went on to give the address, while Thalia watched him nervously and the woman whose phone he had borrowed opened and closed her mouth, gaping. 

Percy didn't stay on the line, didn't answer any more questions. He didn't want to hear the woman ask about what had happened, didn't want to hear when someone got close. He was dimly aware that he was worried they wouldn't get there in time, or if they did, they wouldn't know how to help. 

Because this was a magical affliction, not a normal one. This was his fault, for making Nico drink that, for bringing Nico into this at all. For that matter, nearly every bad thing that had ever happened to Nico was a result of him. 

From the first moment Percy had walked into (or busted into the school of) Nico's life, he'd fucked him up. He left Annabeth, avoided Thalia's plan for no good reason other than that it was Thalia's plan, and nearly gotten the very kids he was supposed to be helping hurt, meaning his own failure had to be cleaned up by the others. Annabeth had been kidnapped, Bianca had been introduced to the Hunters and decided to leave Nico, which was kind of mean on her part but Percy honestly thought she had done the right thing, which kind of made him question his own morals, because he thought it was a perfectly viable reaction to finding out you were a half-blood: leave you brother with people who'll take care of him, and live your own life. 

Bianca had died, and it turned out the camp was hardly the best place for Nico to be left, because no one had protected him, and Percy had failed him (again.). 

Nico had spent his years being thrown about by gods and demigods, never really wanted or accepted anywhere. Much less than that had turned other demigods to Luke's side, but not Nico. If anything, the worse Nico ever got was ambivalent, like he didn't care who won, and even that didn't last. This was the kid who would have turned over the closest thing he had to a friend for a lottery-tickets chance at his father's affection, and then changed his mind and busted Percy out, knowing the hell (literally, hell) they'd be put through should they be caught. This was the kid who spent years—years!—of time that a normal teenager would have spent hanging out at McDonald's, with a group of friends, a sibling, a girlfriend, not buying McDonald's in an attempt to summon his sister's spirit. This was the kid who traveled through Tartarus, alone, trying to find the other side of the Doors of Death. 

This was the kid who slept with a knife in each hand's reach, who turned on white noise in every room, who screamed in his sleep every few nights, who still threw himself in the crossfire of more damage for Percy's sake, on Percy's whim. 

Now he was bleeding, hurting, and Percy went and broke one of the unspoken rules of demigod life, by calling an ambulance. 

With an ambulance, often came the police. 

Demigods don't call the police. 

The police are human—highly trained, very skilled, but human—and they didn't deserve to get pulled into a mess that wasn't theirs. 

Percy handed the woman back her phone and pointedly looked away after saying a curt “Thanks.” 

“Percy.” Thalia repeated, appealing, as if they had a choice, as if there was something else they could have done. 

The only options were a) ambrosia, b) ambulance, or c) wait and see whether he's going to die before they get there or, worse, right when they do, so the two of them could be haunted by another death of a loved one in their presence. 

“We didn't have a choice.” Percy muttered. 

“I know.” Percy looked over at her. She met his eyes defiantly. “I was going to say thank you. I don't want to see him hurting, either.” 

Percy ducked his head and pinched the skin on his ribcage, because he was a selfish son-of-a-bitch, except his mother was incredible and didn't deserve that, and he'd thought the worst of Thalia, who'd been the more sensible out of the two of them for a long time. The pain hurt, duh, but it kept him present and not freaking out. 

Percy didn't want this pressure, didn't want this fear. He wanted it to be done, wanted Nico tucked away in a little box (or maybe a house in Hades) where he'd be safe, and happy, and Percy would never have to sit on a bus and avoid people's eyes and pinch the skin of his ribcage below a missing arm to keep from doing something drastic, like screaming. 

“Thalia.” Percy shook his head to clear it. It didn't work. Percy looped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close, and she locked up, again, not wanting him to touch her, being all 'tough-Hunter-of-Artmemis-who-needs-no-man'. Then she suddenly softened, leaning into him, and it occurred to Percy that he wasn't comforting her, she was comforting him, patting the back of his neck, and he breathed in, ragged. 

For a while, at least two stops of the bus, one of which the lady with the phone left on, they half-hugged. Percy wasn't sure about Thalia, who seemed as rigid and fierce as she possibly could have, considering, but he was finding it easier to breath. 

 

That was until their bus stopped, and they ran, full-tilt, towards the empty building they'd left the son of Hades in. Percy wondered if Jeeves had managed to get out of the way, or if they'd have to explain that, too. 

When they slowed to a gasping, pain-in-his-side stop outside the building, Percy saw flashing lights and lots of bustling people, and he ducked out of the way, behind a dumpster, and doubled over. 

Oh. Percy thought, as he distantly heard Thalia's footsteps and her voice asking what was wrong. He couldn't do anything more than shake his head at her, falling to his knees, and then his arm. He couldn't think. 

His mind was blank, empty, shot, and all he could feel was the hoarse movement of his own chest, his lungs expanding in a vain attempt to get air to his brain, which seemed to be rejecting it. 

It was like it was saying 'if Luke's not breathing and Jason's not breathing, and now Nico's not breathing, we're not going to breath either'. 

Percy moved to claw at his chest, to bargain with his unruly organs, but he only had one arm now and it was supposed to be supporting him, which he forgot until his face was roughly introduced to the coarse concrete ground. 

“Ow.” He moaned. 

“Percy!” Thalia was trying to talk to him, sounded like she wanted to be loud, to scream it in his ear until he responded. 

“Yeah.” Percy whispered it into the gritty ground after a moment, unable to speak louder. 

“Percy!” She hissed again, obviously trying to avoid the attention of any of the emergency people a few dozen yards away. 

“Yeah!” Percy repeated it, turning his head and inhaling enough air to push himself up to a kneeling position. 

“Oh, thank gods.” She was all over him, brushing fingers along his forehead, his arm, the back of his skull. Percy closed his eyes and couldn't get the strength to batter her hands away. His limbs felt noodle-y, weak, even though he knew the problem wasn't with his body but his mind, and his heart. 

“What happened?” She said softly. She was on her knees, too. 

“I think,” Percy coughed and licked his lips, trying to moisten his dry mouth. “I think it was a panic attack, or something like it.”

“Well,” Percy couldn't see her, but he could tell her tone of voice was taken-aback, “are you okay, now?” 

“No.” Percy said honestly. He wasn't sure whether it was a conscious decision, or if it was a by-product of his still feeling light-headed, but he didn't want to lie to her. 

He slowly keyed into the feeling of her slowly brushing his hair away from his face, of the burn on his cheek and nose. He must have scraped it on the ground in his little face-plant. 

“That's fine.” She insisted. Her fingers hesitated on his forehead, she seemed startled, like she came to a conclusion. 

“Something wrong?” Percy croaked. 

“No, Percy.” She smiled at him crookedly. “Not a thing.” 

“I need to see Nico.” 

“Let's head to the hospital, then.” 

Percy raised an eyebrow and accepted Thalia's hand up. 

“The ambulance already left. I didn't hear any screams, so I'm guessing Jeeves got clear.” Percy looked at her, shocked. When had that happened?

“You were,” Thalia motioned towards his recently-vacated section of concrete, “kind of out of it, for a few minutes.” 

“How long?” Percy was aghast. 

“About five.” 

“Five? Seriously?”

“Yes. Let's go see Nico.” 

 

As it happened, they were waylaid on their path to the hospital. Just as the two of them were about to duck onto the street, a bony hand clasped onto Percy's bad shoulder. 

Before Percy had fully understood the scenario, he had his sword drawn and slashing, cutting straight through the wrist of whoever grabbed him. 

The skeletal hand hit the ground with a rattling noise, Percy's harsh breathing filling the rest, as Percy raised his hand to the inevitable sight of Jeeves watching him coldly, one wrist dangling. 

“Sorry.” Percy breathed, quickly sheathing Riptide with his teeth and picking up the hand. He held it out towards the butler.

Jeeves reached out his other hand out and took it, snapping it back on without problem. 

“Yes.” Jeeves responded, passing the two demigods quickly and walking ahead of them in the rough direction of the hospital. “I imagine you are.” 

Percy swallowed, roughly, because he really should have been expecting this. He knew that Jeeves had saved Nico's life once, and that Jeeves was pretty protective of his young master. 

“I'm sorry.” Percy hoped the butler wouldn't kill him, slowly, which seemed likely as the skeleton turned around and glared at him. 

“Yes.” Jeeves' teeth clacked as he spoke. 

“I didn't know he was going to get hurt.” 

“I'm sure not.”

“Really!” Thalia insisted, while Percy made little, aborted slashing motions, trying to get her to stop. There was no point in them both being slaughtered, if that's the mood the dead guy was in. 

“How do you imagine this was not Sir Jackson's fault?” Jeeves countered. 

Thalia's mouth fell open indignantly. “It may be yours, for all we know! 

Percy could see how she may think that, from her point of view. She had never met Jeeves before, and when the two of them had left Nico had only (if only was a word that could be used here) been unconscious, not bleeding out of his nose and mouth and doubled over. Jeeves looked creepy enough, it was hardly a stretch of the imagination to think that he may have hurt Nico, if one didn't know him. 

“I would never.” Jeeves drew himself up to all of his impressive height, and Percy was pretty sure he was even throwing in a little bit of space between vertebrae for that much more. “I have done nothing but help Sir Di Angelo since I have entered his custody.” 

“Oh? And how long has that been, then?” Thalia snapped at the implied 'unlike you two' in Jeeves' voice. 

“Since I removed him from the Archeron after his attempted suicide.” Jeeves said it coldly, and Percy's gut froze with the sheer ice in the other man's voice. Every word was laden with the suggestion of guilt. 

Thalia squawked, like she was about to retort, but Percy grabbed her arm and shook his head. 

“Just don't.” 

“But he's—“

“He's worried.” Percy said, lowly, because that had to be the only reason he could think of that the butler was lashing out, and Percy couldn't blame him. If he'd been strong enough to build up any fury, and anybody else to be mad at, he would have. But he wasn't, and he didn't. 

 

They wouldn't let him in. They wouldn't let any of them in, as it happened. 

“I'm terribly sorry.” The nurse offered her measly apologies as she steered them back to the lobby, both teenagers resisting, the butler marching steadfast. Percy had no idea what the mortals saw when they looked at Jeeves, but he was assuming it was something non-terrifying, as no one had gone running yet. “But only immediate family members are allowed.” 

Percy, like he said on the phone, told the hospital he was a cousin, and Thalia used that as well. Jeeves was their father. Apparently not even cousins were close enough to get into the back room where Nico was being held captive (or being treated, whatever). 

“Please?” Thalia tried looking cute and worried, but the nurse didn't budge, not that Percy blamed her. Thalia was far to scary looking to ever be taken for cute. 

“We'll give you an update when we have more information.” The nurse, whose name was Margo, insisted. 

According to Margo, Nico had a drug overdose, which was apparently what the mortals saw. Jeeves suggested, as they three of them flipped through magazines chronicling the lives of celebrities Percy didn't know, that Nico had a negative reaction to something in the potion, which only got worse as he got scared and his heart rate spiked. 

“How're we going to explain a drug overdose?” Percy ran a hand over his jaw, scratching at stubble. He hadn't realized his beard was growing in slightly, still patchy, because he was too preoccupied with more recent and troubling circumstances. 

Both sets of eyes swiveled to him. 

“Drugs.” Percy prompted, shifting in his seat. “Illegal? Much less in the body of an underage boy?” 

Light dawned in Thalia's eyes, but Jeeves looked uninterested. 

“The same way we will explain the fact that Nico Di Angelo is over seventy years old.” Jeeves turned a page. 

“Oh?” Percy hadn't even thought of that, or how they were going to pay for a hospital trip. “And how's that?”

“We do nothing, and say nothing.” Jeeves nodded, like it was settled, and that seemed like an appropriate course of action to Percy. 

 

It was a couple hours later before Margo was back, informing them that Nico was still unconscious and would likely be for a while, if they would like to return home, the hospital would call if anything changed. 

Numbly, Percy wondered what phone number they would put down. 

That's when he realized it didn't matter, because he wasn't going to be around. 

He wasn't going to be here when Nico woke up, because that was the best get-well-soon gift Percy could give him: safety. Away from the bad luck charm that was Perseus Jackson. 

That settled, Percy nodded at the nurse and thanked her, ignoring the curious look of Thalia's. 

“I've, ah, got to use the restroom.” Percy stammered, and headed for the nearest hallway. 

It was easy, laughably so, to slip out of the bathroom and down the back hallway, to try a couple doors until he found the one with Nico in it. 

There, he stared at the dark-haired guy, watching the rise and fall of his chest, and couldn't help the snugness in his own, constricting. 

“See you, Nico.” Percy whispered into the room, quiet save the beeps of various machines narrating the health of the son of the god of the underworld. 

Percy stopped in the doorway before he left, conflicted, before backtracking into the room. Carefully, Percy dug through his own bag, searching for something he knew Nico had stashed in there. 

Triumphantly he pulled out a small, quarter-sized pebble, smooth and cold. 

Percy sat it on the table and tapped it, like he'd seen Nico do before, when Nico would slip into his room and into his bed, to keep the nightmares of silence away. 

A soft, repetitive humming filled the room, so Percy smiled wryly and tucked the stone into Nico's fist, curling his fingers around it so the nurses wouldn't take it. 

Nico would know, when he woke up, that Percy hadn't abandoned him, hadn't not wanted him. 

He'd only been trying to help. 

Percy left the room quickly, and followed his instincts to the back. Outside a door, over a fence, and he was left on his own, walking in a direction that was roughly east. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you ask, yes this was short by about 600 words. I'm still working off a borrowed pad, with a keyboard that's horrifically small. I think I'm being punished for something, I just haven't figured out what yet.
> 
> Next update should be in three days, to compensate.
> 
> As will always be the case, I love reviews. and I love you.
> 
> Tobi.


	13. You Rang?

That was one of the worst walks of Percy’s life, and he’d had a lot of rough walks.  He’d walked to his death, away from something that should have meant his death, to the death of a friend, and back again.  He’d walked on broken bones (his own, and other people’s) and he’d walked when he thought he literally couldn’t have taken another step without falling on his face, splat. 

Percy walked towards the direction that was (probably) Camp Half-blood, along a bunch of dreary streets that started to blur together.  It occurred to him that he was close enough to New York that he could’ve called the Grey Sisters, still having a couple of drachma in his backpack.  He didn’t want to call the Grey Sisters. 

There was a part of Percy—a really big part, that grew larger and sharper inside him every time he thought about it—that wanted to go back.  That was the part that wanted to sit in the hospital room, make sure Thalia knew he wasn’t mad at her, only hurt.  It was the part that wanted to sit in an uncomfortable chair and watch the rising and falling of Nico’s chest, so that he knew without an ounce of doubt that Nico’s chest was rising and falling, so he could breathe freer himself. 

But the biggest part of Percy was the duller, less defined pain that told him there was no going back this time.  He’d hurt Nico and couldn’t bear doing that again, and he wasn’t going to hurt Thalia even if she hurt him, and he wasn’t going to have to look at Annabeth and say ‘I messed up’, and his mother would be able to relax more not knowing what he was up to.  Every fiber of his being screamed that what he was doing, walking resolutely down the sidewalk as the sun started to hedge behind the buildings behind him, was going to hurt him.  And every fiber of his being told him that this was the right thing to do. 

And Percy always did the right thing, as he saw it. 

After about an hour of walking, the sun really breached over the tops of the shabby buildings, casting long shadows across his path and shrouding everything in a grey tinge.  Percy began to feel the slight chill of the night coming, along with a renewed pain in his, well, everything.  Especially his arm socket and his head, and the raw scrape across his cheek, and the cut on his stomach…basically he was hurting all over, not counting the rough pain behind his sternum that was probably a pulled muscle in his heart wall. 

People pulled muscles in their heart walls, didn’t they?  Hearts were made of muscle.  It made sense, Percy figured, more than any other explanation. 

As the sun finally went down pretty far, and the lights on posts dotting the sidewalk turned on and started to attract bugs, Percy started to think about what he was going to do. 

He couldn’t keep walking like this, at night.  He was an automatic target for trouble, with his arm and various little injuries, and he couldn’t defend himself properly this far from any source of water. 

So, he needed to stop somewhere, and Percy wasn’t picky: he was so tired, and just wanted to leave the world behind and hide out in unconsciousness for a while, that he picked a random alley tucked behind a couple of nicer-looking buildings.  Percy growled as he swung his backpack off his shoulders, dried blood on his lower abs and his cheek pulling at the skin.  Percy leaned against the bricks and slid to the ground, settled the backpack between his legs, and dug around until he found a bottle of pain pills he remembered having stuck there.  Percy shook two of the chalky pills into his palm and rolled them around in his hand. 

On the one hand, they’d take away the pain on his skin and the deeper pain in his left shoulder that had been blooming out across his body since he’d ditched the others and started to focus on himself again.  Less pain would be nice, he admitted to himself. 

On the other, he kind of deserved the pain, and it was keeping him focused.  Taking the pills would slow his reflexes and make him groggy, which would be really bad if anyone managed to get the drop on him while he slept. 

Back to the first hand, if he was groggy, he’d fall asleep easier without having to struggle to get to the quiet, languid space.  He’d be vulnerable, but he was vulnerable anyway, and he wanted to be vulnerable for a bit, if it meant he would just stop thinking. 

Percy dry swallowed the pills, ignoring the bitter taste on his tongue, and curled up with his backpack as a pillow. 

While Percy waited for the pills to work and numb him, he thought about what he was going to do with his life. 

Not immediately, because that was more planning than he could handle, but overall. 

Annabeth was going to start classes again.  Nico was going to medical school.  Hazel and Frank were both soldiers, first, but they did have small jobs outside New Rome as a teacher and a zoo-keeper, respectively.  Leo worked as a mechanic, the best in his area, next to a café run by Calypso.  Those were the only two couples, to Percy’s knowledge, whose relationship survived the time and the bloodshed, and even then that was questionable. 

Their relationships fared better than any of the others of those half-bloods from the Second Prophecy: Percy and Annabeth had fallen out of that kind of love; Piper had lost Jason to death; now Percy was leaving behind Nico; Thalia, Rachel, Reyna, all of those awesome girls had either never had a chance or never had one they could keep.  But just because they stayed together, they weren’t out of the woods.

Calypso had a garden out back of her café, a small one, where she planted stuff, and Percy knew Leo hurt every time she thought of those other men she had loved and lost, because Calypso had yet to trust that Leo wasn’t going to leave.  Leo, for his part, would get a look in his eyes like a lost child when he saw Calypso’s wrist, and the place he had burnt her ages ago when he’d been injured trying to keep his promise to her.  He never forgave himself for that, or his mother, who he never— _never_ —talked about. 

Frank and Hazel didn’t live together or even near each other, because Hazel may have been an incredibly strong and independent woman, she was only sixteen or seventeen now.  Percy wasn’t even sure.  Percy did know that Reyna once called them the ‘most powerful and well-liked demigods’ she’d ever gotten to work with, and this was coming from the girl who intentionally never let herself need anyone. 

_If I wasn’t the kid from the prophecy,_ Percy wondered as the drugs hooked into his mind, _would I have been well-liked, or needed?_

Thankfully, he fell asleep before he could answer himself. 

 

He should have thought about it.  He felt his stomach smarting—that’s one of the reasons (albeit a small one) that he took the pills! 

He should have remembered why his stomach had a cut on it. 

He should have remembered that sleep wasn’t a safe place anymore. 

He should have remembered, but he didn’t, and he was paying for it.

He was drowning. 

He was burning. 

He was in the dark, surrounded by things he couldn’t see; his own breathing coming harsh to his own ears as he wrapped his arms—arm—around his own stomach, trying to keep his organs from quickly retreating and leaving by way of his esophagus.  The dark closed in on him like walls, making him feel claustrophobic and lost, abandoned. 

He was standing again, the world nothing but smears of color that he somehow knew was camp filled his vision, and what he couldn’t see or make out he felt.  He couldn’t see the camp clearly, it was like looking through a blurry glass, but he knew it was camp because that camp was his home.  Emotions swelled through him, emotions he didn’t understand: he felt scared, hurt, disappointed, frustrated, and angry.  _They don’t need me_ , Percy realized, as a thought managed to crystallize in the fog, _they don’t need me anymore_.  Percy Jackson was standing on the sidelines, forgotten. 

He was watching another figure—a silhouette, really—slashing with his sword, pulling the water, fighting and killing campers he knew.  It was him, and he had made a different choice on his sixteenth birthday. 

When Percy woke up, scared awake by the nightmares, a few things hit him. 

Firstly, that was that he was crying into the scrape on his cheek and it stung. 

Secondly, that he was getting hungry, and all the mortal money had been left in Nico’s pack. 

Thirdly, that he didn’t really need to fear Phobos’ power.  He’d had worse nightmares under his belt, and this one slipped away from him like water out of a funnel, leaving him shaky but not terrified.  It was a sad day for Percy Jackson when the worst dreams the god of fear could throw at him were on-par with his normal ones. 

 

Percy sat up a bit, wiping at his face while avoiding the scrape, which made him think of his apparent panic attack, and then wonder what brought the attack on. 

It was hardly like that was the most stressed he’d ever been. 

‘It’s healing’, the logical voice in his head (the one that sounded like a cross between Jason and Rachel, steady and firm) insisted, ‘healing means recognizing the damage done.’

Percy was only starting to see the damage that’d been done to him. 

There was someone he knew who knew about damage, and healing, and it was probably time for a visit. 

 

Percy tracked down a phonebook in the lobby of some dirty motel that smelled like stale cigarettes.  Percy set the phonebook on the counter, ignoring the ugly attendant’s eyes staring at his missing arm, and ran a finger down to the ‘R’s.  Percy memorized the address and headed that way. 

The apartment was underground, one level down, and the carpet on the doorstep worn but clean.  Percy buzzed the little button next to the door and grinned up at the peephole when the footsteps on the other side stopped. 

Percy heard a muttered curse on the other side of the door, before the chain was slid and the door opened.

“Percy.”  Clarisse growled as she opened the door.  She looked older, had gotten a scar across her forehead, grew her hair out and braided it back in a surprisingly intricate manner.  She was wearing jeans and a university sweatshirt.  “What the fuck happened to you?”

“Drakon.”  Percy gestured toward his shoulder, and the bandage.  Then he decided to go ahead and fill in the rest, pointing to his stomach and his face, “curse, and panic attack.”

Clarisse winced in a rare show of sympathy, and sighed.  “Come on in.”

“Thanks.”  Percy followed her into the small apartment.  It was sparsely furnished, with a wide array of weapons: a set of swords crossed decoratively on the wall, an axe peeking out from under the sofa, throwing knives stuck among the steak knives on the magnetic strip in the kitchen. 

“What do you want from me?”  Clarisse’s words were hostile, but they fell flat somehow.  Clarisse and Percy had never gotten along well, but Percy counted her as an ally, if not always a friend.  She was stable, dependable: you always knew she’d hit you if you said something she didn’t like, and she’d run enemies through with a sword faster than two shakes of a lamb’s tail. 

“Your boyfriend.”

“My boyfriend?”  Clarisse paused and looked back at him, narrowing her eyes. 

“Yeah,” Percy rolled his eyes, “I’ve come to steal your boyfriend away from you.”

“Good luck.”  Clarisse mumbled to herself.

“I need,” Percy broke off, dug his fingernails into his palm, and tried again, “I need a place to stay for the night, and some information.  About mental issues.”

“What makes you think we can help you with either of those?”  Clarisse demanded. 

Percy looked over at her couch, and then back at her with a ‘really?’ look.  Percy had seen Chris Rodriguez at camp.  He was a nice guy, even though he’d once helped Kronos’s army.  When it came down to it, he’d fought on their side. 

The reason Percy wanted to talk to him was because of the monsters Chris had fought for years—not monsters like Percy was used to fighting, with fangs and scales, but monsters in his own head, twisting his thoughts around into dangerous things.  Chris had been driven mad by the Labyrinth, and Percy couldn’t help feeling like he was treading on some unstable ground. 

As usual. 

“Rephrase:” Clarisse met his eyes and raised an eyebrow.  “What makes you think we will help you with either of those?”

“Out of the goodness of your heart?”  Percy joked. 

Clarisse gave him an incredulous look. 

“I’ve got money.”  Percy said seriously.  “Drachma.”

“Now we’re talking.” 

 

By the time Chris got back from camp, which was evidently only a half-hour bus ride and then a twenty-minute taxi ride away, Percy had struck a deal in which he used the shower, the couch, and the fridge of the Rodriguez/La Rue apartment and got some questions answered for the night, in exchange for a dozen drachma and the promise a favor, which Percy really hoped wasn’t going to be called in for a potentially-lethal altercation, or an embarrassing dare. 

Percy and Chris exchanged handshakes and manly claps on the back, along with a few ‘how are you, man’s?’ even though both new the other was not actually fine. 

Then Percy went through the brutally awkward experience of talking to an ex-crazy guy about being crazy. 

“It’s just…” Percy wilted a bit under Chris’s level gaze, looking at him from across the coffee table.  Clarisse was in the basement, drilling with something sharp and dangerous.  “I don’t know what to think any more.  My mind doesn’t feel…normal.  It’s different, like it’s busted or fragmented or something.”

Chris nodded, and stared off into space beyond Percy.  That was something Percy had noticed Chris did, sometimes, now, but it was hard to tell if this was ‘previously insane’ staring or ‘normal people thinking’ staring. 

“I think that’s normal, Percy.”  Chris said.  Percy started, thinking Chris was referring to his previous thoughts and that would be weird.  When he remembered what Chris was talking about, the disappointment washed over him. 

“Yeah.”  Percy said, because it seemed like Chris’s comment needed some acknowledgement.  “Yeah, I think I knew that.”

“Hey, it’s good you dropped by, though!”  Chris brightened up. 

“Yeah?”  Percy was still stuck in a little bog in his mind.  If this was normal, then there was no way to stop his heart from hurting in a way that was probably not actually a pulled heart muscle, and no way to stop himself from going blank and washed up and empty-feeling in alleyways. He wanted it to be a tangible problem, something he could kill with drugs or yoga or a well-placed punch. 

“Yeah!”  Chris insisted, standing and walked towards a back room.  Percy tentatively followed, keeping an eye out for other people or traps. 

The reason for Chris’s excitement was a strangely shaped leather-and-metal contraption.  Chris threw it over Percy’s head without warning and cinched one of the leather straps under his arm and around his stomach.

“What is this?”  Percy managed.  He was off balance, even more than usual, because he was top heavy.  The thing was a breast/back plate combination, hinged over his shoulders with the leather straps that also cinched along his ribs on the side.  It wouldn’t give him any protection for his sides, but it would at least impede a sword to the chest or back. 

“It’s something Leo made a while back, when I had a shoulder injury.  Not one of your caliber,” a wry grin, “but a little one.  I couldn’t hold a shield and my sword, and sword was key, so I asked him to make me a little something to buy me some time.    I don’t need it now; I figured you may get some use out of it.”

“Thanks.”  Percy wondered what the metal was.  It was heavy, it was heavy enough to put him off-balance.  It might just be heavy enough to off-set a little of the weight of his sword and keep him anchored on his feet.

It wouldn’t be enough to help him keep his slashing movements (which were bad) or to keep him on his feet any easier (also bad) and it wouldn’t help the fact that he was used to fighting with a shield.  He still had massive weak spots at his neck and his sides. 

‘ _But_ ’, Percy mused, as he tapped the metal with a fingertip, ‘ _it’s more than I thought I’d have’_.  That pretty much summed up his life experience right now. 

“Thanks.”  Percy repeated, more sincerely this time.  It could have been his imagination, but he felt safer, less precariously balanced. 

“Can I borrow your phone?”  Percy asked, before he chickened out. 

“After you shower.”  Chris eyed Percy and his various dirty clothes, cuts, and bruises, which Percy conceded was a good idea. 

There was something Percy had noticed about washing out cuts: without the barrier of dirt and dried blood, they seemed to smart more, be more vividly painful.  He was wincing with every motion by the time he stepped out of the shower. 

The cut on his stomach was not deep, but it was defined.  The slash cut through his skin and straight into the muscle, which was one of the few bad side-effects of not having any fat on his stomach. 

The scrape on his cheek was raw, and he spent a long time in front of the bathroom mirror picking gravel out of it. He couldn’t help wondering again what it was about that time that made him freak out so badly. 

After Percy thought he’d gotten all the sharp rock pieces out of his skin, he stepped back.  The mirror wasn’t full length, but it was large enough that he could see his whole torso and upper body. 

Standing there without a shirt, hair still hanging damp around his face, he looked crooked.  Off-balance. 

One side of his body looked normal and strong, which made the other side, the side that wasn’t right, broken like a busted shelf or a cracked sword, look all the more out of place. 

Percy hadn’t ever seen himself as all that attractive; he always wanted to be more handsome, more something, more awe-inspiring.  Percy was the edgier kind of handsome, the kind that depended on being at least balanced or lithe-looking, and now he’d lost that. 

It was depressing, thinking about it, because if Percy hadn’t been good-looking before he went and screwed his body all to hell, then there was no way he was good-looking now.  He looked tired and worn, like pictures of returned soldiers he’d seen on the news back when he did things like watch the news.  He looked wounded and pitiful in the way most of the amputees he’d seen did.  Ethan Nakamura had lost an eye, and Percy had had so much trouble looking beyond that, like the biggest struggle of that kid’s life had been that he was short one eye, when really there were all those other battles that meant so much more.  It was damning that he knew that, because his life was becoming more about what he wasn’t—what he was missing—rather than it being about what he had done.    

He was Perseus— _Freaking—_ Jackson, and he’d brought down Titans and giants and been offered a chance at immortality by the gods, and now he was nothing more than an off-balance kid who was becoming another injury, like his entire identity was being lost to the drakon piece by piece. 

As the mirror blurred slightly by saltwater in his eyes, Percy swore that that was not going to happen. 

 

Percy now had three people to call, instead of the original one.  He weighed the numbers in his mind; it didn’t seem like it should matter, who he called first, but it did.  For some reason it felt like the one he picked was the one that would be shelved while he did the more important second  or third thing. 

Percy dialed the first number, the one that came to him as he left the bathroom, before he could consider it too deeply.

“Hello, you’ve reached Paul and Sally Blowfis’s.  We can’t come to the phone right now, so please leave a message at the beep!” 

The voice was tinny, like his mom had been speaking through a mouth of tin, but it was her voice.  Percy swallowed, hard. 

“Hey, mom.  I’m, uh, going to take a trip.  I’m going to be gone for a while, like a week or two…” Percy trailed off.  His mom was used to him vanishing, it’s not like she’d even notice a week or two of no communication.  He cleared his throat.  “I love you.  Bye.”

The truth was that Percy didn’t think she’d notice him being gone, but he wanted her to. 

He dialed the second number, reading it out of the phonebook he’d found tucked in a cabinet near the phone. 

“Central Field Hospital, how may I help you?”

“Hi, I’m calling to check—” Percy froze.  He knew they wouldn’t give him a status update, because they couldn’t reveal anything about a patient like that, so he asked them if a Jeeves or a Thalia Grace were there. 

“Would a Jeeves Grace or a Thalia Grace please come to the front desk?”  Percy heard it spoken over the intercom system, before a voice in the phone told him to please hold. 

Percy sat there, holding the phone to his ear and ignoring the sounds of the television in the other room.  Chris was gone, maybe downstairs or sleeping or out, but Clarisse was watching some wrestling team beat each other up.  She seemed to be of the same mind as Percy: the two would be nice to each other, but weren’t going to seek each other out or try to talk about meaningful things.  Clarisse had seen Percy lead an army even though they both knew the prophecy, and Percy had seen Clarisse change her mind (a truly Herculean task) and fight a drakon for a girl she hadn’t even seemed to like all that much.  Then, Percy had figured out that the two girls had been unlikely friends.  He wondered if the two of them, Percy and Clarisse, had felt the same things, him watching Jason and her watching Silena.  Of course, she hadn’t had to kill Silena, she only felt partially responsible for her death, which was probably nearly the same thing.

There was a picture of a tall man with his arm around a young-looking Chris on the refrigerator, held there by a ‘Try Me, Punk’ magnet.  To the right of it, there was a picture of Clarisse and Chris at Camp Half-blood, leaning against each other in armor.  Percy noted that there wasn’t a picture of Clarisse with a mortal parent. 

“Sir Jackson?”  Jeeves’ voice echoed through the phone.  He was projecting a lot of feeling through it, most of which made Percy want to curl into a ball and hide from the skeleton man. 

“Here.”  Percy licked his lips.  “How’s Nico?” 

“He’s going to be fine!”  Thalia interjected, muffled from her distance from the receiver. 

Percy felt one of the tides of anxiety inside him retreat.  Nico was going to be fine.  He felt like laughing, hitting something, just sitting down and reminding himself that Nico would be fine, therefore Percy would be fine. 

“Where the hell are you?”  Thalia yelled, apparently elbowing the middle man out of the way, if Jeeves’ indignant squawk was anything to go by. 

“I’m at a friend’s.” 

“What friend’s?”

“Not important.”  Percy didn’t want to talk about himself, he wanted to talk about Nico—he wanted to make sure Nico was going to be okay.  “You said Nico’s okay, right?”

“Yes.” 

“That’s good.  So, thank you, Thalia.”  Percy pulled the phone away from his ear and put it back, quickly, to add something.  “Take care of yourself.”  Then he pulled it away and ended the call.  It was important to keep calls brief: even with the add-on the Athena kids designed that minimized the monster signal, it was dangerous and talking too long would bring in the nasties.  Plus, he didn’t really want to talk to her any longer than necessary. 

The third number was one he barely recalled.  The Big House had installed a phone (with the Athena cabin add-on), that could be used by kids in trouble, or satyrs in trouble. 

A satyr Percy didn’t know answered the phone, sounding as bored as one would imagine. 

“Would you tell Chiron that the quest for Phobos went badly, but everyone’s…er…not okay, but living?”  Percy heard the scratching of a pen on the other side. 

“And who shall I say was calling?” 

For some reason, Percy didn’t want the satyr to know who he was.  He would be awestruck in the flattering but annoying way, or he wouldn’t know Percy at all, both of which would hurt a lot. 

“Peter Johnson.”  Percy said, before hanging up. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long break between chapters. I don't actually have much of an excuse.   
> Tell me your thoughts on the chapter?
> 
> Tobi.


	14. Here There Be Ghosts.

_Previously:_

_For some reason, Percy didn’t want the satyr to know who he was.  He would be awestruck in the flattering but annoying way, or he wouldn’t know Percy at all, both of which would hurt a lot._

_“Peter Johnson.”  Percy said, before hanging up._

 

 

The itch started in Percy’s heels, turning the ground beneath him into pins and needles, like his feet were falling asleep. 

“I need to do something”.  He realized aloud, to the light post.  “And not just any random thing, like emptying trash, I actually need something interesting.” 

What he really wanted to do was to go back to camp, but he knew that there were a number of reasons he couldn’t. 

He couldn’t go back because he was still a hero there, and he would do anything— _anything_ —to keep that from going away, like it would if they saw him now. 

He couldn’t go back because he’d be useless there.  He didn’t go on long quests anymore anyway because there was another herd of young, freaked-out, hopeful little demi-gods there desperate to prove themselves and win their parents approval and buy into their birthright, like he’d been.  So his job—the only real use he had at camp, anymore—was to teach those same kids how to fight with a sword, so they would have a better chance at not dying a painful death or getting scarred beyond recognition or, eh, losing an arm.  If he couldn’t do that job now (and he couldn’t), he was about as useless as the satyrs of Camp Jupiter, except less hairy.  And, sadly, probably less handsome right about now. 

He couldn’t go back because he knew people there.  By now, Annabeth would be on break from Olympus visits, and Rachel was still there, and there’d be others who he would know by face but couldn’t remember the names of (oh, I know him, he fought in the war).  Annabeth, strong Annabeth, who never gave up or broke, who was a pillar of strength and knowledge and power—because knowledge was power, she was easily the most powerful person he knew, and he knew he couldn’t be weak like this in front of her.  Rachel gave him the quest and Annabeth and Rachel talked about him, he knew.  Annabeth ask about it, as if she didn’t know what had happened; healing and all that, she’d want to poke at him, ask what each line of the prophecy meant, who had to be left behind and who was hurt. 

To look her in the eyes and tell her he left Nico behind (again) would hurt him.  It hurt him to think about it.  It was the best option, the only way to ensure Nico’s safety, but it had not worked and Nico hadn’t been safe, and Percy had not been there.  He kept telling himself he wasn’t going to hurt Nico, but it was shaping up to look as though he never did anything but hurt him. 

Percy couldn’t be proud of his skills, or his mind, or even his body anymore, but there was a rush of pride that bloomed through him because he left Nico when he knew he didn’t want to. 

Percy was selfish sometimes, and he hated himself for it.  He wanted nothing more than to curl up with Nico and pretend everything was just fine, even though he knew he didn’t love Nico like he loved Annabeth once or even like he loved Thalia, like a sibling, therefore he had no claim to the residual affection Nico gave him sometimes.  He was stealing it from Nico, riding on Nico’s incomprehensible resilience that made it so that he could hate Percy and still want to be around him. 

 

Without even thinking of it, Percy had walked to the coast, near the Hudson.  The water was as murky and gross as it had been before he gave the spirit a half a sand dollar, thanks to the New Yorkers and their inexplicable disrespect for the water. 

Percy stared down at the water, a few feet below him.  He was out on a dock, looking over the edge of the bowed boards beneath his sneakers.  He could feel the pulsing of the water even up the posts that anchored him in the river.  It was a power, alive, thrumming through his body and his mind. 

He could feel the power loose direction a bit when he tried to move it, because he’d always used his body as a steering mechanism, a form of expression, like a painter’s paintbrush.  His body didn’t feel whole or right, it felt damaged and the water’s power surging through him resounded that message with every beat of his heat.

Pump.  ‘ _Wrong'_.

Pump.  ‘ _Wrong'_. 

Pump.  ‘ _Wrong’_.

 

Her name was Maria, and she was beautiful, and also broken. 

Percy stole her.  She was abandoned, filled with stagnant water, with a slow leak at the bridge and peeling paint on the sides.  Maria was a small sail-boat, with a ripped sail, a fitting match for the thief who needed it.    

It wasn’t hard to picture it.  The first beam was broken, snapped, and she was a little thing at barely 20 feet, a bowl with two masts; it’d be cheaper to buy a new one than to buy and fit a new beam.  So whoever owned her left her, and Percy needed her.  He was hardly going to pass up another injured thing that just needed to be needed. 

He begged a bucket from another fisherman, and gotten a cracked stainless steel number that worked well enough.  He could’ve used his power, but someone might see him, he rationalized.  He kind of wanted to bail it out by hand, so he did, even if he had to watch his weight because it kept overbalancing the thing, without a second arm to steady himself.  Even though the (slimy and truly disgusting) water he was bailing out only went up to his knees, the water soaked his jeans nearly up to the pockets.  He cheated a bit and swept the chunkier and sea-weed-y sections out, even if he didn’t water-proof his jeans. 

It was therapeutic, to be standing in smelly water, to feel the slight burn in his arm when he got down to the last inches, to do normal-person work instead of using his power.  It was…nice. 

He felt a little flurry of happiness, a tentative touch of feeling content, starting to brush in the bottom of stomach.  Percy quickly replaced the feeling with a touch of power, swirling the tacky sludge at his toes up and over the side of the boat. 

Now the sealant he actually bought.  It wasn’t real boat sealant, just waterproof silicone that would suffice, as long as Percy kept an eye on it.  But hey, he didn’t steal it! 

He didn’t need the beam, because he could power her with his power.  He lifted it out and slid it into the neighboring boat. 

The last thing to fix was the ripped sail, hanging there limply.  Percy fished out a first aid kit and used the needle and thread for a quick fix.  It wasn’t like he was ever going to stitch someone up with that—he was liable to do more harm than good, and his stitches were horrible enough just there on the sheet of canvas.  If he ever tried to do any form of repair, his patient would end up looking like Frankenstein’s monster. 

He strung up the sail, at least five hours after he found the Maria, and pushed off from the dock with his leg.  He shoved a little push of the silty water up against the boards under his feet, and he was heading south along the coast. 

 

To say he was sunburned was an understatement. 

He’d always been pretty lucky, being darker haired and able to tan a bit.  But the tan would only come after a burn, and someone out there (Hera, he’d bet his left, well, ear that it was Hera) had asked someone to turn the sun from its normal burning self to what felt like 400% degrees of straight U.V. rays on his arms and face. 

‘It would’ve been nicer’, Percy thought, ‘if someone had just pressed an iron to my face.’

Eventually he pulled down the sail, putting a little extra force into the sea below him, and used it as a makeshift shelter to cower under.  He’d gone slower in the cove but when he was out on the sea he kicked the speed up, heading down the coast with no destination in mind other than away from the choking river and the people. 

 

“Percy!”  Percy jerked awake, swinging his arm up to toss the canvas sail off on himself.  He was on a boat, in the Atlantic, and for a moment he brandished his sword because no one other than an enemy would drop themselves right in the middle of his boat. 

And then it struck him that it was dark everywhere, and he had slept through most of the day, and there could have been a Cyclops on the prow-side seat, and he wouldn’t have known. 

“Percy.”  The voice repeated, and Percy’s eyes began to adjust too late, and he really, really wished it had been a Cyclops. 

“Nico.”  Percy repeated nervously.  The boat picked up on his nerves and rocked unsteadily, until he capped his sword and sat back down, extending his hand to the edge of the boat for balance. 

“Percy.”  Nico’s voice was rough, and Percy was glad he was sitting down because of the weak feeling he got from knowing Nico could have _died_ , and it would have been his fault. 

“Nico.”  He repeated again, because they seemed to be saying names for no real reason. 

For a moment, there was silence. 

“What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”  Percy tried to break the ice, badly, hoping to come off as nonchalant and non-freaking-out because Nico was RUINING his finely tuned PLAN here. 

“Looking for you.”  Nico said back without emotion, but Percy saw the slight flicker of an upturn in the corner of his mouth. 

“Why?”

“Because you left.”

“Because I…” Percy took a deep breath to calm himself, failed, and took another.  “I know I left.  I left because I wanted to be alone, and you’re kind of wrecking my whole thing, here.” 

“You don’t want to be alone.”  Nico said flatly.  Percy physically had to clench a fist to keep the water from bucking up under them.

“Yes, I do.”

“No.”

“YES I DO!”  Percy yelled it, before shoving his fist into his mouth and biting hard at the meat there.  “Yes, I fucking do.”  He said, more to himself than to Nico, who sighed dramatically. 

“Tough shit.”  Nico said. 

“What was that?”  Percy lowered his voice, this time.  He wasn’t going to shout again if he could help it. 

“I said tough shit.”  Percy saw Nico’s outline as the other boy pushed up off the bench seat and stood, taller and imposing, whole. 

Percy caught a slight waver in Nico’s bearing.  “Go back.”  He said immediately, before biting down a bit on his cheek. 

“I’m sorry?”  Nico started, and then shook his head.  “No, I’m not.  Repeat that?” 

‘ _What the hell_ ,’ Percy figured.  “I said, go back.” 

The boat was silent again save for the creaking and shifting beneath their feet.  Nico was higher than Percy, and he didn’t like it, but he didn’t want to risk standing up too.  If he did, he might go off balance, and that would have ruined this persona he was trying to put on.  He needed Nico to leave him, to walk away and never look for Percy Jackson again for his own good. 

“You don’t want me here.”  Nico sounded, for a moment, hurt.  Percy’s eyes smarted but that wouldn’t do, so he nodded.  He’d do whatever it took for Nico to just shadow-travel away. 

Nico laughed creepy, low.  “Too bad.” 

Percy stared at him, not understanding.  He wanted Nico to leave—Nico should have wanted to leave!

“For gods’ sake!”  Percy waved his arm around.  “Get the hell outta dodge!”

Now it was Nico’s turn to stare at him, nonplussed. 

“Go.”  Percy suggested.  “I’m no good to anyone right now, least of all you.  In fact, I’m probably the worst person you could be around right now, and that’s the truth, so just go.”

Percy had stood when he started speaking, praying to any god that would listen that he wouldn’t lose his balance and pitch headfirst into the water. 

He stared right into Nico’s black eyes and drilled the words into him.  ‘ _that’s the truth, so just go.’_.

Quick as a flash, Nico’s hand was up and whipping across Percy’s face.  Sharp pain ricocheted through the side of his face, burning lines up his jaw and his cheek.  Percy would have flailed for balance, if he’d had an arm over there to flail, but he didn’t so he pitched headfirst into the water, getting a slosh of salt water into his mouth and up his nose as he sank towards the bottom. 

Thank you very little, gods, for that inspiring care of your family. 

For a moment, he let himself sink.  His face had hurt before, but now there was a bone-deep ache.  Nico could hit _hard_.  He took in a breath of air from the water. 

Nico was up there.  Nico was in the Maria.  Frankly, there was no other place Percy wanted to be right now, even if he’d only known Maria for a day now and his face hurt like a bitch courtesy of Nico. 

He wanted to zoom to the surface, give Nico a little undeserved and very soft slap in return to salvage his pride, and make Nico go back to a hospital room.

He would do that. 

In a minute. 

 

A fish drifted past him, all bright-scaled and brilliant.  It gave him the stink eye and swam away. 

‘Yeah, that’s enough internal thought’, Percy decided. 

 He gave a little push of water, carefully crafting around the fish, and jetted himself to the surface. 

Percy surfaced, gasping, about two yards from the Maria.  He cocked his head and surveyed the scene. 

Nico was trying to raise the canvas sheet that was the sail, and doing badly. 

Percy hummed under his breath and the sail snapped out of Nico’s hands up the mast, anchoring itself, ropes snapping. 

Nico turned around on his heel, to look at Percy.  More like to glare at Percy, but it was a fine line. 

Percy paddled for a moment before he used the water to push himself in the boat.  He was strong, but not strong enough to heft himself up several feet out of the water with one arm.  Nico made no move to help him.  When Percy slid to the floor of the boat, he just laid there, because this was as good a spot as any. 

“Why did you slap me?” 

“You deserved it.”

“Excuse me?”  Percy narrowed his eyes.  Nico made no sense, never had, but this took the cake.  He was trying to help, and he’d gotten hit!

“No, just shut up and listen to me.”  Nico sat down and pinned Percy to the bottom of the boat with his eyes. 

“You don’t get to save me.” 

Percy opened his mouth to argue, but Nico raised an eyebrow threateningly.  He looked so done, so finished with anything Percy might come up with to use as a point of argument. 

“I don’t care if you want to leave to save me.  You don’t get that choice.” 

“Oh, I don’t?”  Percy growled.  It seemed an awful lot like he did, like he had made that choice before. 

“You don’t.”  Nico insisted.  “If you leave me again like that, I will hunt you down.  If you do it again after that, I will still track you.  I will track you anywhere, everywhere.

“If,” he raised his voice over Percy’s mumble, “You tell me right now that there’s something wrong with me, that you don’t want to be around me, that you honestly want to be alone, then I will leave.” 

For a moment, he seemed genuinely scared that Percy was going to say that.  Percy latched onto that like a lifeline. 

“I don’t want to…” He began to say it, to say the words that would ensure that Nico stayed well away from him.  Another muscle in his chest wall pulled, and the breath knocked out of him like the time he had fallen from the climbing wall at camp.  He couldn’t finish it.  He wasn’t strong enough anymore. 

He laughed, low, in his chest, because he was tail spinning now, and Nico was the ship getting caught in his whirlpool. 

He shook his head, feeling like he’d signed some sort of death warrant.  Whether it was Nico’s, or his own, he couldn’t tell. 

“Good.”  The tension fell away from Nico’s arms, his jaw, like the slack from the ropes on the mast when the wind died. 

“Good…?” Percy repeated feebly. 

“Not really.”  Nico admitted. 

“I hope you know what you’re getting into.”  Percy shook his head.  He had no idea what it was Nico had just put on the table that he had accepted.  Maybe they were friends, or maybe Percy could turn this into more without breaking one or both of them, or maybe they’d exist in a symbiotic (thanks, Annabeth, for that word) relationship where the nightmares stayed quieter and nobody bought bus tickets. 

There was an air of finality, of consequence, drifting around them in the salt-heavy wind. 

“I don’t.”  Nico responded.  “I don’t need to.” 

 

Percy turned the boat to shore, on the understanding that he needed food and shelter.  He docked it on the coast, pulled it up on the shore as much as he could, tied to a tree.  He knew the exact longitude and latitude of where they were, but it didn’t exactly help him much, standing on the shore. 

“Oh.”  Nico said, eyeing the passersby.  “I think we’re in Georgia.”

“Really?”  Percy gawked at a nearby sign.  He should have remembered that he could travel fast when he wasn’t thinking about it, over water.  His brow creased.  “Didn’t you know where I was?”

“Nope.”  Nico popped the ‘p’ at the end of nope. 

“How’d you find me, then?” 

“I just held something of yours when I shadow-traveled.  Soemtimes it works,” he shrugged, “sometimes it doesn’t.  It worked.” 

Percy’s mouth went dry.  “If it hadn’t have worked, would you have ended up in the ocean somewhere?” 

“I dunno.  Maybe.” 

Percy sucked in a breath. 

“Stop.”  Nico forestalled.  “I was pretty sure it’d work, and I took the chance.” 

Percy shook his head.  He wasn’t going to contribute anything to this conversation other than some non-verbal ones. 

“You really aren’t getting this, are you?”  Nico marveled. 

“Getting what?”  Percy asked, annoyed.  He felt like he kept missing something. 

“Excuse me.”  A little old lady stepped out in front of them, and both of their hands twitched towards their hidden blades out of habit.  Little old ladies were rarely harmless, and this one was no exception. 

Her eyes burned with dark blue fury as she took another step toward them, her skin briefly glowing with an unsettling pale glimmer, like she was made of pure white marble and the healthy pink was nothing but a veneer. 

“I think you’d be more use to me dead.”  She said sweetly, before driving her claws at Percy’s chest. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Cliffhanger! 
> 
> Just a reminder that will always be true: the more feedback I get, the faster I will write and therefore update. File that away someplace important for my ego’s sake, will you?
> 
> Next chapter: the drop from our cliffhanger, a promise made, and food with friends. 
> 
> Tobi.


	15. Old Crypt.

 

_Previously: Her eyes burned with dark blue fury as she took another step toward them, her skin briefly glowing with an unsettling pale glimmer, like she was made of pure white marble and the healthy pink was nothing but a veneer._

_“I think you’d be more use to me dead.”  She said sweetly, before driving her claws at Percy’s chest._

 

Percy reacted before he even thought about it.  His hand went out, shoved Nico behind him, then yanked out Riptide and popped the lip off.  Anaklusmos sprang out, all shiny, and he swept it in front of himself and sliced through a few of her fingers, dropping the claws to the ground, where they bleed out a streak on the ground.  The woman hissed slightly.  She pulled her hand back in, smiling cruelly.

“And they told me you wouldn’t fight.”  She hissed.  Percy held out his sword warningly, and twitched when Nico brushed his side when stepping up equal.  He scowled, maybe at the wrinkled woman who was glowing slightly and threateningly, but more likely at Percy for shoving him back.  Not that Percy had really thought about it before doing it, but logic meant nothing to Nico in a mood. 

“Or maybe they said ‘couldn’t’.”  The grandma taunted.  Percy’s stomach turned and he shifted Riptide in his grip. 

“Who’s they?”  Nico inquired casually from Percy’s left.  Somewhere in the back of Percy’s mind, he recognized that Nico had switched sides from being on Percy’s right, around his back, to stand on his unprotected left.  Percy was wearing his armor from Chris, so with Nico standing at his injured shoulder menacingly with both blades out, he wasn’t going to be taken down easily.  Whatever ‘they’ said. 

“My friend.”

“Who’s your friend?”  Percy carefully regulated his voice. 

“Her name is unimportant.”  The old lady snarled.  Percy hoped she’d glued her dentures in securely.  He also filed away the fact that whoever was going after them was a ‘her’.

“Why does she want us?”  Nico inquired. 

“She doesn’t.”  The lady shifted forward, driving her other sharp, clawed hand at Nico.  He batted her hand away easily with the flat of a blade, instead of slashing, which made Percy twitch uncomfortably for some reason. 

“Why'd she tell you about us?”  Nico pressed. 

“Why should I tell you?”  The lady countered. 

This wasn’t adding up, in Percy’s mind.  ‘They’ had sent one freakily glowing clawed person to take out two of the most lethal demigods alive, in a bad attempt.  They were on a street.  It was a fairly crowded street, but someone would be bound to notice something was up. 

So there was something Percy was missing. 

There had to be another person. 

Percy wheeled around, hissing a warning at Nico under his breath, just in time to slap away another clawed hand that had been going at his head from behind, a sharp shriek filling the air. 

This woman was also about as old as Gaea herself, glowing white, and sharp-fingered.  She had dark eyes, unlike the first woman’s pale ones.  She snarled as she pulled her hand back, standing only a few feet from Percy.  She shuffled back and glanced at her companion, over Percy’s shoulder.  He hoped Nico was keeping an eye on that one.

Percy held his sword out, already feeling the deep burn in his arm from supporting the sword one-handed.  For the hundredth time in as many minutes, he wished he had his other arm.

Well.  He’d have to work with what he did have.

He internally inventoried his surroundings, keeping aware of the murmuring next to and behind him in case it got heated between Nico and the elderly, murderous lady. 

There was a pitcher of lemonade or something similar on the table outside a nearby restaurant.  There was a gutter of rain-water to his right, Nico between him and it.  The ocean wasn’t too far away, a wash of power running through him.  If worst came to worse, he could always bring it a little bit closer. 

Of course, there were a lot of people around, people who were now filing around the four standing people but wouldn’t be as indifferent if the ocean suddenly rushed up on them. 

As if in reminder that Percy was not the only child of the big three present, the ground rumbled ominously, Percy shifting from heels back to toes.  Nico had reached out and curled a hand around his wrist just before it hit, like one flesh bracelet would hold Percy steady when the ground pitched. 

The ladies weren’t so lucky, tipping and nearly falling.  One yelled something to the other, but it was lost in the wave of noise from the crowd, panicking and starting to rush to wherever they were going.  These were coastal folks, and Percy wondered how many earthquakes hit here regularly.  Nico’s little reminder had been small, the pitcher of lemonade barely rippling, but the women’s eyes darkened.  Percy decided that Nico was on the right track, this time, and pulled a leaf from his book.  While they shuffled back into straight up position, Percy pulled a thread of water out of the gutter; weaving it around Nico’s boots and separating it, letting it run towards the two threats.  He let the water trickle up into their shoes—it was nothing but annoying, not harming them, but letting them know that there was water near and that was his domain.

They snarled and apparently didn’t get the message, because there was a screeching noise from behind him.  Percy whipped around and drove his sword through the flower-patterned ribcage that had been hurled at him, the shape exploding into a wash of glittering, tacky gold.  He just had time to catch the warning.

“Percy!”  It was said, screamed, more like, right next to his head, and there was another wash of gold that descended on him from above.

It fluttered down around him like a twisted baptism; from above, because he was on the ground, Riptide clanging against the asphalt, and he couldn’t see anything.  There was nothing but dark, and more clanging, and the voice that had yelled his name did not belong to Nico but a mix of two girls’ voices, calling out a warning to late.  Percy made a little, involuntary noise of pain, feeling the ground pitch up and around him in his nausea. 

There was a lot of pain. 

The world wouldn’t hold still. 

He wasn’t back there, he knew he wasn’t, he couldn’t be, that was the past and if there was one true thing in a world of Mist-veiled and hidden things, it was that the past was done. 

It was done. 

He wasn’t bleeding out on the asphalt of a street near his home.

He had just collapsed, glittery, onto the asphalt of a street very far from home. 

And it still hurt. 

 

It was raining.

For some reason, Percy had it in his head that it didn’t rain very much here. 

They were entombed, buried beneath the earth, hidden among the dead.  Literally, because when Nico needed a place to hide himself and a useless partner, his first thought was apparently “Ooh, I know, there’s a graveyard!” 

Percy leaned up against the stone wall.  They were in some rich man’s tomb.  Nico just shadow-traveled them both right in, ignoring the locked door and scary-looking spiked fence.  The wall at Percy’s back was like an ice-pack with the way it was sucking the heat from his body.  Percy was very aware of that, just like he was aware of the sound of rain assaulting his ears and the grim, soft darkness: not stark dark, like the black of sleeping, but the filtered-with-light light like the kind in the Underworld. 

His whole self was hypersensitive, and he was thinking it might be because a half-an-hour ago he was a bit lost to the world, unable to feel anything but memory. 

Di Angelo wasn’t here.  He was out doing something, something with fixing the street.

He had accidently set off a larger, very concentrated earthquake when Percy had dropped like a fly, without even being touched by either of the ladies.  That’s where he was now, trying to shift the street back into place with his powers that the news wouldn’t have to cover a story of an unpredicted series of very dangerous earthquakes over a very small area, which would be hard to explain. 

Percy ran through the scenario in his head.  Off the boat, onto the street, into the arms of the monster, who apparently had heard of him from a mysterious ‘they’, and down to the concrete.  It was odd, but nothing about it seemed sinister. 

There wasn’t anything about it (other than the mention of the mysterious ‘they’) that seemed to indicate a bigger plan, to Percy.  They’d been nothing but a couple of boney monsters that Percy had never run across before. 

‘ _Wait a second,_ ’ the voice in his head latched onto the memory, ‘ _they were very skinny, in threadbare clothes_.’

‘ _They attacked the first demigods they saw, even though we were stronger than them_.’ the voice went on relentlessly, even though he struggled to stop the train of thought before it ran him over, tied to the track, ‘ _they were desperate.  Starving.  You killed them._ ’

Unbidden, he replayed the moment where he slashed off the one’s claws.  How many times had he done that?  How many monsters had he mangled, maimed, left defenseless and hurting before he killed them?  How many times had he done to them what had been done to him?

That train of thought hurt, when it ran over him in his little brain-metaphor.  Annabeth would be disappointed in that symbolism, that’s for sure. 

Oh, heck, he should call Annabeth soon.  And Thalia, who presumably knew that Di Angelo was a) not in a hospital, and b) with Percy.  Though he doubted she figured they’d be in a crypt, not so soon. 

“Percy?”  Speak of the devil; the boy in question stepped out of the shadows, McDonald’s bag in hand.  “I got food.” 

Percy cleared his throat.  “I see that.” 

Di Angelo shook out his hair, clothes dripping onto the floor.  Percy quickly pulled the water out of his clothes and dumped it in a corner, before he started shivering. 

“Thanks.”  Clothes dry, he stretched, dropping the bag with a thump.  “Everything okay here?”

Percy read between the lines, understanding the real question of ‘are you okay?’.  “Yes.” 

Di Angelo divvied up the burgers inside, giving them each three big burgers and a large thing of fries.  “Didn’t know what you wanted.  Got everything.”  He shrugged, not caring if Percy liked it or not. 

“That’s fine.”  Percy tore into one, and the world was quiet save for the constant tapping of rain.

 

Half an hour later, the rain hadn’t given up yet, pounding relentlessly above their heads.  The two had caught up on whatever stories they felt like sharing, including Percy’s version of the trip to Phobos’.  Nico was indignant on Percy’s behalf, a dozen times more than Percy was.  After a while, the topic fell away to silence, a hurt silence, and they didn’t talk about the hurt that was Thalia’s. 

“This is odd.”  Percy looked up, as if he could see the sky through the low concrete ceiling. 

Nico shrugged again, but it was a shrug of agreement.  The guy had a whole vocabulary of shrugs. 

“I think they were starving.”  Percy said it, half to fill the void, and half because it felt like it needed to be said. 

Nico was running a cloth over the blade of his bone sword, but he stopped when Percy spoke.  After a second, he went back to polishing or petting, whatever he was doing there. 

“Yes.”  He said after a moment.

“I dunno,” Percy felt frustrated, because for some reason this was annoying him—the rationale behind normal, everyday monster attacks was not questioned, it just _was._  Monsters attacked demigods, demigods killed monsters, if they weren’t killed.  It was nature, it was taught, and it was not questioned.  “It seemed wrong that they were just trying to survive, and I…I don’t know.”  Percy trailed off, while Nico stared off darkly at a corner. 

“We’re trying to survive.”  Nico pointed out. 

“Never mind.”  Percy tapped the floor with his fingers, splayed out, red knuckles bright against the grey floor. 

“I’m not like you, Percy.”  Nico set the white sword down and picked the Stygian Iron one up, rubbing it with the cloth, and Percy saw the light in Nico get swapped out for something darker when he spoke.  “I don’t think about the monsters as much.  I don’t see them—I don’t have to fight them often.  They’re not important.”

Percy caught a flash of his own blue eyes reflected in the sword. 

“Not important.”  He repeated dumbly.  To Percy, a monster was a sign of a bigger war looming on the horizon.  Percy had been fighting these for so long, it didn’t even occur to him that there were demigods who didn’t consider them important, didn’t see a set of claws and immediately see a battle cry, a sign of a head honcho sending a messenger with a bloody note.  Nico saw a threat in every face on the street, but it was that: a threat of danger, one that passes quicker.  He had less to fear, less to love and fight over, and that was dangerous—he had nothing to lose. 

“Nope.”  Nico insisted, still watching the dark corner instead of the sword in his hands or the boy to his side.  He swiveled his black eyes to Percy and narrowed his eyes.  “Do you think less of me?” 

“No.”  Percy lay down on the floor, lying on his tense arm as a pillow.  His shoulder hurt, all twisted up.  “I wish I was you.” 

“You think?”  Nico laughed.  “I don’t know, sometimes I wish I was you.” 

“I bet.  I’m awesome.”  Percy joked as he turned his head, flaring up pain across his collarbone. 

“Let me check your shoulder.”  Nico commanded, already sliding swords off to the side and sliding over to Percy. 

“Why?”  Percy shied away instinctively.  He trusted Nico with his life, but his shoulder was hurting and ugly and the last (or very nearly last) thing he wanted was for Nico to pity him. 

“Because I’m worried about infection, and I know you’re not taking the pain pills I gave you like you should be.”  Nico didn’t let Percy struggle—not that he would have—before sliding surprisingly large hands under him, to push him into a sitting position. 

“Alright, alright!”  Percy snapped as Nico started to shove his shirt up, not letting Percy get a grip and help.  Percy pulled it off himself and wrung it in his hands, like it was damp, wincing preemptively.

He needn’t have winced.  When the fingertips came pressing at the tender flesh, they were gentle, pushing just hard enough to get a feel of the underlying body. 

He couldn’t see Nico’s face because Nico was behind him, one of Nico’s shins pressing along the small of Percy’s back, where there was once a chink in an impenetrable armor. 

If he’d kept the blessing of Achilles, he wouldn’t be here, with Nico’s fingers finding a particularly touchy spot by Percy’s shoulder blade and staying there, plumbing the muscle underneath. 

If he’d kept the blessing of Achilles, Gaea would have won, because Percy would’ve run for the sea and been happy underneath the water.  The only reason he didn’t was because of a warped sense of duty, and the promise of Annabeth, which wasn’t even as much about Annabeth as it was about the fact that Annabeth had made him strong, important, and needed.

Then again, maybe if he’d have run for the sea, there would have been another demigod.  There would have been a different one.  One that could have done everything Percy had done, except maybe he wouldn’t have killed Jason or he wouldn’t have angered the gods, or he wouldn’t have been so broken at the end. 

Prophecies were so tricky; maybe it wouldn’t have been him, if he had run for the sea and kept the skin like iron. 

Even before then, maybe it wouldn’t have been him, if one little thing hadn’t happened.  He never left the Lotus Casino, stayed put with the two people who once upon a time were the only two people that mattered to him.  It could have been anyone, because it would have been left up to those left, and those that maybe hadn’t been found—they only died. 

Say Thalia had been a little less independent, a little less desperate for a father figure, a little less hurt by Luke’s leaving, she would have chosen differently.  When he said “come” she would have, and it would be her, and the prophecy would have meant something different.  Percy could be dead with a hundred other demigods, and that would have been that. 

What if Bianca hadn’t made a mistake in a scrapyard?  What if she hadn’t joined the Hunters at all?  If she had stayed with Nico, who needed her, and if Percy died in some freak accident or died on a quest, she would have been it.

Maybe, if Nico hadn’t picked Percy over _his own father_ for whatever reason he did, it would have been Nico, like Hades had planned.  Percy would have been stuck in a cell, delayed from getting any older, while Nico made a choice to preserve or raze Olympus, and while Nico was one of the most powerful and most important demigods Percy had ever known, he should never have to make that choice.  His answer might have scared Percy when Hades brought it down to gloat, after a few years of doing nothing but watching mold grow on the ceiling of a cell. 

Then, there was Jason, and Percy still didn’t understand what twist of the fates made the rebellious, screwed up son of Poseidon the pick, rather than the upright, protective son of Jupiter.  It should have been Jason.  It always should have been Jason, just like it should have been Percy on the grass, bleeding. 

All these god-damned ‘maybes’, ‘ifs’, and ‘should-be’s’ swam in Percy’s head, ricocheting like a radar off a cave wall, countered by the heat of Nico’s palms as he pressed them, one on either side, front-and-back, of Percy’s body. 

“How does it feel?”  Percy inquired, speaking softly because he was reminding himself that there was a dead guy not far away who surely didn’t want to die. 

“Hot.”  Nico murmured back.  He sounded worried. 

“I was talking about the wound, but thanks.” 

He won a laugh from Nico, and the hands gave one more press directly over the slicing scar, like a scythe on the side of Percy’s body. 

 

Eventually, the rain let up, the pummeling on the roof of the burial vault residing, gradually moving from tapping to the occasional tap.  It was like popping popcorn, in the way it moved from hot and heavy to the few and far between. 

Nico had smeared some whitish cream along the seam of Percy’s shoulder, where the skin from his front and his back had been pulled together unnaturally.  Then he tugged Percy’s shirt back on, and tried to hand him a couple of pills, but Percy waved them away and lied, telling him he wasn’t hurting.  Nico stared straight at him and pressed one finger, rigid, at the soft spot right below Percy’s collar bone a couple of inches away from his neck.  Percy flinched, curving away from that touch, and Nico backed off.  He’d made his point, it seemed, and he didn’t try to give Percy any more pills, like he knew Percy wouldn’t take them. 

“We’ll stay here, tonight.”  Percy had to remind himself to say it out loud, not to just say it in his head.  He couldn’t help falling into the leader role, now that he’d already gotten back up on that particular Pegasus.  It seemed to help that Nico liked to follow, even if he was one scary as hell follower, one of whom Percy knew better than to boss around.  Nico gave another shrug of agreement. 

A couple of hours later, Percy stared up at the faintly lit ceiling, head resting on his shirt.  The witch-light rock’s light was blurrier up here, out of the underworld, but it was light enough that he wouldn’t dream of Tartarus.  He’d dream of other things, especially thanks to Phobos, but every once and a while he’d get an off-the-wall, fairly good dream (like one where he was covered in blue bacon, and another involving a shopping trip gone wrong).  He’d have nightmares, but there was the chance he could get a good one in there, too. 

He let his mind still a bit.  Nico was breathing, steady and slowly, but Percy couldn’t get his breathing to settle into a pattern like that.  He got up to a kneeling position, arm still hurting from being overworked today (he needed more sword practice, bad), and shuffled towards Nico’s backpack on his knees, which hurt.  He brushed the armor given to him by Chris, making it clang loudly.  He thrust out his hand to still the ringing, holding perfectly still, measuring Nico’s breathing until he was sure he didn’t accidently wake him.  He didn’t.

Pills fished out of the bottle.  One, two—like Nico had given him—and an extra to make three. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: My credit to the request (from a fucking lifetime ago) for Percy covered in blue bacon. Thank you for that, it lightened my mood a bit! 
> 
> Thank you for reading, my ducks. You are the only reason I am posting this, because long stories aren’t my usual jazz. This is my baby, though.
> 
> Tobi.


	16. Knife To The Heart

Chapter 16: Knife To The Heart.

_Previously: Pills fished out of the bottle. One, two—like Nico had given him—and an extra to make three._

 

 

Percy fell asleep with three arms hugging himself: his own lonely one, and two of Nico’s, anchoring him in place. As usual, it was easier to fall asleep and stay asleep with another body pressed up against him. Somehow, he doubted the effect would be as strong with anyone else.

When he woke up, blearily, he knew it was in the middle of the night. The seatbelt-like limbs were gone.

“Nico?” His voice cracked on the second syllable, tired and stressed like the rest of him. He heard a slight, drawn-out groan from a few yards away. The room was dark enough that he couldn’t see anything—or importantly, anyone—but he stood up anyway. He shuffled his feet in as small of footsteps as he could.

Finally, the tips of his toes brushed something, and he crouched, tentatively holding out a hand. His fingers brushed and then settled on a warm, shaking, soft surface.

“Nico.” He moved the hand an inch upward, trying to figure out what it was he was touching so he could orient himself to his friend.

“Yeah.” Nico whispered it, giving Percy another clue. Percy sat down and leaned over, moving his hand to the side until he felt a shoulder, and then down the lane of an arm until he could weave their fingers together.

“What’s wrong?” Nico was sitting, curved over his own legs, one arm crossed over his unclothed abdomen and the other resting on his leg where Percy pulled it out as he asked the question.

After a moment of silence, Percy dropped Nico’s hand and reached out into the dark until he felt the some straggly stands of hair, and then the curve of an ear. Percy slid his hyper-sensitive hand down until it curved around Nico’s neck, thumb up on a cheekbone, and thumping pulse cupped against his palm. “What’s wrong?” He repeated. The words echoed back slightly. Nico’s pulse remained steady.

_‘Oh, no.’_ Nico had mentioned this, once. Percy’d even seen him like this, once, after a battle. When Nico got too stressed, he stopped responding to most of what went on around him. It was a lucky talent.

If Percy knew a way to pull him out of it, he would have. However, he didn’t, so he just slid a little closer, folding a leg under Nico’s left one so he could rest his arm a little easier.

 

It was a long time later when Nico’s pulse sped up a bit under his jaw and Percy’s hand.

“There we are.” Percy breathed a bit more freely. While Nico was the happy, well-adjusted of the two, he still had his little quirks of damage. Like sleeping with swords. Or skipping out into his own head when it suited him.

Nico turned his head into Percy’s palm slightly, like a cat.

“Hey.” He sounded tired.

“What happened?” When Percy had fallen asleep, Nico had seemed fine. When he woke up again, Nico wasn’t.

Nico cleared his throat, coughed, and cleared it again.“There’s too much energy.”

“Huh?”

“There’s too much spirit energy everywhere. It’s the tomb. It was fine, but then it got worse when it got dark.”

Percy realized he was still holding Nico’s neck. He reluctantly went to move his hand, but Nico grabbed it in place.

“Leave it.” He muttered. Percy couldn’t see his face, but really wished he could. He pushed his luck a little, stroking his thumb over Nico’s cheek a couple times soothingly.

“Better, now?” He wanted to know if they had to move. They could, it wouldn’t be too much trouble.

“Yeah.” The word rushed out in a swish of breath. Nico’s face was close to his. His breath swept past Percy’s cheek like a brush of a ghost, amusingly. “I’m fine. It’s gone.”

“Good.” Percy wasn’t really sure what he was saying was good, now; the topic dropped like a penny to the floor.

“Yeah.” Nico repeated.

“Can I…” Percy wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask. _‘Can I help? Can I move closer? Can I move away?’_

“Yeah.” It was like that word was the only one left in Nico’s vocabulary. He didn’t even know what Percy was asking, which was saying a lot, as Percy had no idea.

Percy exhaled shakily, inhaled even more so, and pushed forward.

Nico’s lips against his were soft, strong, slightly chilly from the cold air of the tomb, chapped on the bottom lip into a rougher texture. Percy brushed their lips together, gently, praying that Nico wouldn’t turn away from him. He didn’t have much to offer, but he could offer this.

Nico inhaled sharply against Percy’s lips, like he was shocked and caught unawares, but like he wanted everything (such that it was) that Percy could give.

The next thing Percy was fully aware of was that he had caught Nico’s bottom lip between ridges of teeth, and that a Nico’s hand had made its way into his hair, gripping him tightly, unrelenting. He surged forward, their teeth clacked for a moment, but Percy came back to himself—or maybe he just left himself, he wasn’t sure—and tilted his head just enough to wear their noses brushed, then their mouths slotted in the perfect way, and Percy could have sworn he melted right through the floor.

How was it that a touch, just a slick brush of a tongue, could stop the ache in Percy’s chest that he hadn’t even realized was there?

 

It was Nico who pulled away first, leaning back and away. Percy was still missing one vital sense, so his first instinct upon losing the touch of Nico’s pliant mouth was to touch something else. He groped for Nico’s wrist and rested his fingertips, lightly there, because he’d lost enough physically and what he really wanted (other than to feel Nico’s scratchiness along his cheek, scraping) was to remind himself that Nico wasn’t going to run for the border.

The silence soaked into the dark around him.

This was awkward.

And it was dark.

It started slowly, an itch at his palms and feet, pulse points, twitchiness.

“Nico.” He broke the silence.

“Percy?” Nico’s voice was rough.

“I wish we could sit here all uncomfy for a bit longer, but I really need a light.”

Nico huffed, the cool air brushing past Percy. He rustled off to the side and Percy heard a zipper being pulled.

“How can you see?” Percy asked incredulously, the awkwardness and hopefulness of the moment being lost for the time being.

“Spend a lot of time in the dark.” Percy could practically hear Nico’s shrug being projected into his words.

“Oh.” Nico tapped the little stone, the room lit up in a two-foot radius around it, and Percy’s lungs eased up, pulling in the air he lost when he was busy not breathing.

“Thank you.” Percy whispered. He could barely see Nico; he could make out an elbow here, a shoulder there, and he wished he could see his face clearly. He needed to know what his next course of action needed to be. He’d apologize (and not mean it) if he thought it’d keep Nico from leaving, which was something that could never happen.

But then, Nico had kissed back. Enthusiastically. It’d be kind of rude to get Percy all hopeful and then ditch.

“Erm.” Percy tried to think of something to say.

“Don’t.” Nico warned, cutting him off before he could come up with an actual word to convey, well, anything.

_‘Don’t? Don’t what?’_ Percy wondered. _‘Don’t speak? Don’t think? Don’t touch me?’_ The ‘don’ts’ swirled around him.

Percy licked his lips. “Don’t what?”

“Speak.”

Percy didn’t. He didn’t like taking orders, but he didn’t have a right to push his words on Nico right now. He didn’t have any authority on this ground, wasn’t powerful here. He wasn’t the handsome Percy he used to be, the one he knew the teens at camp appreciated with sidelong glances, when he walked with the swagger that came naturally with knowing he had taken on everything. He wasn’t that anymore, and he couldn’t be that again.

“Percy.” Percy found his right side suddenly braced with another person, wedged together, hip-to-hip and shoulder-to-shoulder. “Hold me.”

There, there was the Nico Percy knew, the stable ground. Demanding and bratty at times, but so, so welcome right now.

Percy wrapped an arm around Nico’s waist, because the twerp had to go and grow taller than Percy to where it didn’t feel right to throw an arm over his shoulder. He set his hand on what he judged to be the other boys hip, going by the feel of the curved bone.

“I want to know what you’re thinking.” Percy felt the old, leader, in-charge instinct surface like a bubble.

“Too bad.” Nico’s words were sharp, but he rested his forehead over on Percy’s shoulder. Mixed messages. Another thing Percy was used to. He couldn’t help but crack a smile, despite being worried and the lack of light still making his stomach turn every time he blinked.

“Just a hint?” Percy needled, partly joking, partly seriously and wanting to know what was going on in Nico’s head before he would even start on the bramble-patch of his own.

Nico sighed.

“I don’t know. I can’t discuss this right now, because you’re in no state to discuss anything.”

Percy thought for a minute. Nico was resistant to sharing his feeling because he did not want to know Percy’s, apparently, which was stupid but that was Nico.

‘Easy,’ said the logical voice in the back of his mind that he usually ignored, that sounded like a mix between Rachel and Annabeth today with no Jason, ‘he speaks, but you don’t.’

Percy’s first thought ran along that of a long-suffering groan, before he decided that might just work.

“Okay.” Percy wanted to chew a fingernail, but his hand was wrapped around Nico (and going numb because Nico had leaned back, pressing his arm between back and wall), and his other arm was MIA. “You speak. I don’t.”

“You could do that?” Nico sounded skeptical, proving Percy’s thought about brattiness.

Percy shrugged, knowing Nico would feel it and decipher it, having his own freaking language of shrugs. They were silent for a while. At some point, their breathing had synced up, to where just as Percy finished inhaling Nico followed suit. It was calming, patient; Percy waiting to see if Nico was going to speak or not. He couldn’t make him, couldn’t shake him. All that he could do was wait.

“I want you.” Percy’s head sang a note at that, both an excited shriek and a warning alarm. “But I can’t know you want me.”

Percy wanted so, so badly to speak. To tell Nico that he was wrong, that Percy wanted him—needed him—like he’d never needed anyone.

“No,” Nico cut off Percy like a scissors-snap. “I can’t. you’ll say you do because you need me, because you need to be needed. You’re desperate for being needed, I know, I’ve been there, but it could turn out that you’re just using me to make yourself feel needed.”

Nico’s rough voice wasn’t angry, or hurt, wasn’t unhappy. He sounded resigned, tinged bitter, with a touch of his dry humor.Percy couldn’t get a handle on what he was saying, struggled with it, knowing that this was very important to get right.

His eyes flickered to the dark corners, and he knew Nico was probably right.

He couldn’t just like Nico. He couldn’t just want Nico for all that he was. Percy needed to be needed, and Nico needed him, and he could very well be using the other boy for that feeling.

He didn’t want that to be the case. He wanted to just want Nico, pure and simple. But nothing in Percy Jackson’s fucking life was ever pure and simple; he wanted to be needed too, and the two wants entwined like strands of a rope, where Percy couldn’t tell where one started and one ended.

The worst thing was that he still wanted it. He still wanted Nico even knowing that he was using him, taking advantage of Nico’s unfathomable desire to stick around him, maybe even wanting him. Could he take advantage of someone like that? Could he take advantage of someone who was technically still a child, emotionally damaged, seeking any person who would fill the gigantic void all demigods hauled around?

The answer was yes.

If that wasn’t a sign of how messed up Percy was, he didn’t know what one was.

 

“Come here.” Percy tugged his arm around Nico as he went to lie down. All he wanted was that warm wall of Nico next to him, that reminder that there was another person who’d seen the terrors, who’d faced the army.

Nico came, tossing the usual arm and leg over Percy’s body. It seemed they were throwing away the pretense that neither of them knew it would inevitably happen during the night.

Just as Percy started to nod off, hoping to get a little more sleep before the sun came up and they’d have to figure out a game plan other than hanging out in some guy’s burial chamber for the rest of their lives, Nico got up.

“Where’ya…” Percy started to sit up, like to follow. He could make out Nico’s shadow crossing a few feet, digging through his bag. Oh.

Percy leaned back, waiting until the humming noise filled the air, as necessary to Nico as the light was to Percy. Nico slipped back alongside him, one hand clutching a sheathed blade perpendicular along his body. Percy brushed his hand along Riptide to double-check that it was there. It was, of course, so now that they were both armed and the room was sufficiently lit and loud, he drifted off to sleep.

 

“Percy.” Percy felt someone pushing on his bad shoulder, using the pain to pull him back to the land of the unfortunately-living. “Percy, wake up.”

“…Nico?” Percy sat up, groggily. The room was faintly lit, light streaming through the glass panel under the roof on two of the walls. Percy glanced around to make sure everything was ship-shape (no use making it any easier to track them, in case anyone was trying), and started to tuck things away. Nico picked up their rocks, turning them in his hands before slipping them into Percy’s backpack pocket.

“Where are you headed?” Nico asked. Something about his wording made Percy’s head jerk up as he slid on his pack.

“You mean ‘we’?” Percy made sure his voice was carefully nodulated, not accusing or anything. Surely Nico misspoke.

“No, I thought I’d head off on my own for a while.” Nico hesitated, meeting Percy’s eyes.

“Oh.” Percy shouldn’t have felt as twisted up as he did.

Nico needed space, and Percy would give it to him.

Even though Percy’s own self was currently screaming all sorts of negatives at him.

Percy was done, so done, with putting his own needs in front of others.

“Okay.” Percy shuffled slowly.

“Is that it?” Nico asked softly.

“Yes.” _Done, done, done._

“Fine then.” Nico practically snapped it, which was stupid, because Percy had done everything right and he was sure of it!

“Fine.” Percy said back curtly.

“…Fine!”

“That’s what I said!” Percy was irrationally frustrated. If Nico was leaving, why wasn’t he just gone already? Percy wanted to shove him out the glass-painted door and get it over with!

There was no point tiptoeing around Nico’s feelings anymore, anyway, because Nico needed some space. Apologies could be made when he got back.

There was a beat of no motion.

“Are you going?” Percy asked coldly. _Leave, leave now, go._

“I guess so.” Nico responded bitingly, fire to Percy’s ice.

He wrenched open the door, stepped out into the sun, and made a few quick strides out, slamming the door behind him.

_‘Seriously?’_ Percy thought, going to follow Nico out the damned place.He yanked the door open, determined to march out with all the strength he could muster, but before he made it two feet he tripped over a pair of dark Converse shoes.

No.

Dark eyes, fixed upward, blank.

No.

Shiny, smooth-handled something, deadly in its angles and shapes.

No.

Small, but rapidly growing puddle of blood—pool, it was now so big it qualified as a pool, but Percy was still standing there, frozen, because it was a flowing out in a river from Nico from the silver gripped knife in Nico’s sternum.

No.

No.

_Don’t leave me, don’t leave me now. Don’t go. Nico, don’t go._

 

“PERCY!” It was yelled, more like screamed, near Percy’s head, and the terrible blank eyes and pounding ‘my fault’ in Percy’s ears faded away with the rest of the world, into the real world that was grey and lit up with the sunshine of morning.

“Stop.” Nico was kneeling next to him, shaking his un-injured shoulder gently. It occurred to Percy that Nico was trying to get him to stop speaking, because he was still shaking his head and muttering.

“No. No. No no no.” He trailed off. It was a dream. Nico wasn’t dead, there was no knife in his chest; Percy reached out his one hand and pressed a finger right to the center of Nico’s breastbone, to be absolutely sure, before he let himself think it.

It was all a dream.

Damn nightmare. A damned nightmare that had Percy’s heart racing like a freight train, and he was the one tied to the tracks.

“Fuck.” Percy breathed out, pushing his hair away from his face, trying to regain a sense of where he was.

He moved his hand suddenly from Nico’s chest to around his back, crushing him in a hug.

“Don’t go anywhere.” He asked—he couldn’t bring himself to beg, not yet, but if Nico made a move away from him and to the door he might just.

“Nope.” Nico pushed off of Percy’s chest, studying his face. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Percy said automatically. Then, he added, “now. I’m okay now. Nightmare.”  He grimaced, and Nico grimaced in return.

They had plans to make.

 

They decided to see camp. Maybe they could both get a little part-time, no promises, no set amount of days to work job. That was the only kind of work camp had anymore, and it suited them both fine.

Bags packed up, Percy fished out a granola bar and a (very badly bruised) apple and, miraculously, managed to keep it down, even when he saw Nico turning the rocks in his hands exactly like dream-Nico had.

“Hold on.” Percy pushed Nico behind him as they neared the door. Nico looked askance, but didn’t question and didn’t resist, thankfully.

Percy yanked open the door and went first, so if any knives came, they came for him.

The knives didn’t come, so Percy, followed by Nico, stepped off onto the path that wound down the graveyard.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: sorry for the terribly long break between chapters. I had a lot of classwork to catch up on, but I double-time it these last couple days so I could get this chapter up tonight. You all are wonderful for sticking with this fic.   
> Tobi.


	17. Cabins.

_Previously: Percy yanked open the door and went first, so if any knives came, they came for him._

_The knives didn’t come, so Percy, followed by Nico, stepped off onto the path that wound down the graveyard._

 

 

“This place is creepy.” Percy observed. They’d walked, ran and rode their way up to the last mile of camp, before Nico went ahead and shadow-traveled them into his cabin at camp.

With the exception of the rare and treasured visit from Hazel, the cabin remained empty, gathering dust in the green-ish cast lanterns that hung off the walls above eye-level. It was monster lighting, catching on the angles of Nico’s jaw and his swords, casting the two of theirs’ shadows against the dark walls. It was eerie and dark, even though the day outside was bright and vivid.

“Um,” Nico stood with a hand against the iron-plated door, the other on the door handle. All Percy could see was the squiggly outline of Nico’s left side, lit up. “I may just hang out in here, for a bit.”

Percy observed him for a moment. Nico looked haggard, jumpy. It occurred to Percy that Nico had never felt at home at camp, not like Percy did: for most of his experiences here, he was an outsider, unwelcome. In the worst way, in a way that made Percy’s lungs hurt down in the bottom, it wasn’t surprising that Nico still wasn’t happy here and still didn’t feel at home.

Percy nodded. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Nico gave Percy a grateful look as he left.

Admittedly, Percy had never seen camp from the Hades’ Cabin door, but it didn’t seem like that was the only reason camp looked different now.

It was like when Percy had changed fundamentally, down to his bones and the godly blood that ran through him, the camp changed to reflect that.

Unlike Percy, there was nothing particularly out of place; nothing was missing or broken. The cabins lined up in the same way they did when he last came to work here, sword swinging cheerily. The grass still grew tall and vividly bright with the power of Demeter and Dionysus. The Big House stood stately and proud beyond the dining pavilion. All around him, there were kids going about their lives, playing games and walking places, in all states of dress and undress; Percy saw kids in street clothes, kids in full-battle armor, kids in pajamas, and kids in any combination thereof. It brought back a wash of memory, tinted nostalgic with a ‘those were the days’ kind of ring to it. Those were the days when his biggest worries were capture-the-flag game, when he didn’t get his armor put on right and he didn’t understand what all the various battle commands meant.

There, to his left, was the bathroom with the toilet Clarisse tried to shove his head down. That was the first time he got a reaction from controlling water. Who would have thought, as he splashed her and a handful of other Ares kids, that he would have counted her as a friend one day? That he would have respected her as a fighter, as a human, and trusted her enough to stay with her and Chris when he was weak?

His feet moved of their own accord, taking him to the place he’d known as home for so long: Cabin Three.

He reached out his one, lonely hand to brush the wall as he opened the door and stepped into the cabin. He felt the shells imbedded into the walls, rough under his fingers. He closed his eyes and just felt the cool against them, breathing in the smell of salt and seaside that always seemed to soak into the air of the cabin. He opened his eyes to see the fountain his dad gave him so he could always Iris-message, to see the metal hippocampi Tyson had fixed to the ceiling that always seemed to be swimming.

Tyson.

Ow.

He wasn’t going to think about his brother just yet, just now. That struck another chord of homesickness in him, one he couldn’t deal with because he didn’t have a home anymore.

His hand that was just barely brushing the wall suddenly went to being pressed flat against it, supporting him, as he breathed in heavily. He didn’t have a home anymore. He wasn’t home here anymore.

He tasted the edge of salt in the corner of his mouth and he licked it away quickly. It stung his tongue.

That was enough of that. Enough of this damned hurt in his lungs.

 

He headed in a familiar path to the training area, past the climbing wall that rattled ominously. It seemed like there should have been a path there from how often he used to walk this way, back and forth.

After the second war, when he and Annabeth had had their little identity crisis because the thing they’d been fighting for for so long had been finished, they’d come back to camp. Percy remembered Luke’s voice telling him to hold his sword a little higher, strike a little harder, and figured if there was one thing he knew it was how to fight.

Chiron had welcomed him with open arms and he’d fought and taught a hoard of new, young demigods with their own quests in store.

He knew Annabeth had told Chiron he couldn’t teach anymore, and he’d already reiterated that to the centaur a couple of times. Chiron had been training for so long he must have known when a demigod was too busy or broken to be of much help to others.

Percy pushed open the door. There was already a pair of guys fighting in the center, one with a sword, one with a mace and a shield. There was another half-a-dozen demigods lingering here and there outside the fighting area, watching the fight and talking amongst themselves.

“Percy!” A taller boy in a chain-mail shirt scurried over to the door, clapping a hand on Percy’s shoulder. “Long time, no see!”

“Hi,” Percy racked his brain for this guy’s name. He knew him; he was a son of Apollo and a good fighter, and who’d fought in the second war but not the first, “Gary.” Percy finally remembered it.

“How’s it going, man?” Gary asked brightly. His blue eyes wavered over Percy’s missing arm.

“Fine.” It was law, written somewhere, that you always said you were fine. “Who’s leading this thing, now?” ‘ _Who replaced me’_ , Percy really wanted to know.

“Me and Nyssa from Hephaestus. We co-lead.” He added, like that hadn’t been obvious. Percy ignored the nasty, happy churn in his stomach that it took two people to do what he had done by himself. At least they hadn’t been able to pop someone right back in his spot when he got chomped.

“So, what happened?” Gary was still looking curiously at his arm, along with a couple other kids.

“Drakon.” Percy breezed, trying to act nonchalant. It must have worked, because Gary looked a little impressed, if a little pitying. Percy silently thanked Chiron for not announcing it like a loss to the camp.

“So, do you want to fight?” Gary broke the silence, gesturing towards the ring.

The ‘no’ was right on the tip of Percy’s tongue, but he thought about it. It wasn’t like his current fighting stance was anything he’d be able to hide from the camp for the rest of his life. That was a punch to the gut, a reminder that he’d be dealing with this for the rest of his life. It was easier to think about when he didn’t think he’d live that long, when he expected to die young and heroically. It always seemed like an ‘all or nothing’ situation, like he was going to die or live wholly for whatever time he got. It didn’t seem like being hurt and cut down to a fraction of his former self was an option.

Since that was the truth of the matter, the marrow of the situation, there wasn’t any avoiding it.

“Yeah.” Percy brushed a hand along the straps of his armor, picking Riptide out of his pocket and flicking the cap off. Anaklusmos popped out in his hand, and he was dimly aware of two things: a) he was off-balance, unsteady compared to the great ‘before’, and b) in the last few weeks, in the time he’d been recovering physically as much as he could, he’d gotten a little better. He could rock on his feet to steady as his other arm had once done, and he knew more of his boundaries.

He wasn’t as talented or skilled as he once was, but the underlying, inherent skill was still there.

In the ring, he swung the sword a couple of times. He kept nearly letting himself be tugged one way or another, but he was a large guy and could keep himself grounded.

Percy recognized the face of the guy across from him in the ring, with the sword, the self-declared opponent of the moment. It took him longer than it once did to win, but win he did. He received a cut on his arm for his troubles, the pain sang in his head and his blood, rushing with adrenaline.

It felt good to be fighting again, even if he knew that this guy, Bruce, wasn’t an enemy.

It made him feel alive.

 

An hour later, he’d lost more fights than he’d won, getting steadily worse as he wore out. He was dripping sweat, tasting salt in the corner of his mouth like he had before but for an entirely different reason.

“Thanks.” He breathed to Gary as he left. Gary looked…impressed? It was like he was expecting Percy to stop fighting after the first time he’d gotten his ass handed to him, but if that was the kind of person Percy was, he wouldn’t have been standing here.

He made a beeline for the bathroom (as nice it was to feel sweat instead of tears, he’d rather get it off his skin pronto) and stripped down in the shower even before the water heated up, feeling the cold streams strike his skin. He could have levels out the water pressure a bit, but he liked it how it was, like it used to be before he figured out how to work his powers. It made the insides of his arms and thighs tender from being struck with the full force of water.

He rested his forehead against the grainy, filmy wall of the shower.

Every time he’d come to camp, even from the first time when he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, it’d felt like he was coming somewhere safe.

But now the monsters wouldn’t stay outside the camp boundaries; they lingered in his brain and in the pain that always radiated out of his shoulder, the two of them woven together like the Fate’s strands of thread.

 

Percy went to the dining pavilion when it was lunchtime. He ordered the usual food and made his way over to the fires for a sacrifice, scraping some food off his plate and dedicating it to the gods.

To Poseidon, his father, for being a relatively-good father for a god.

To Hera, for her squirrel-brained plan to unite the camps that actually worked, albeit at a very costly price.

And lastly, he scraped a little bit more of his plate, to Hades, who was a dick but had helped the camps when they needed it, who hadn’t demanded Hazel go back down, and who had given him Nico indirectly.

When he sat down he had half the food he had started with, which was still plenty for him (he was used to having a lot to thank the gods for). He tried to pick some slightly-less gratuitously fatty foods, going for chicken and some veggies. He’d noticed a little bit of squishy gathering at his stomach, which was something he’d never had before (funny thing about running for your life, practically every day of your life: you don’t get soft), and even if he could not be handsome he could at least be as fit as possible.

He sat at his own table, unaccompanied by any person. The camp had tossed rules about sitting at other cabin’s tables a long time ago, but when it came down to people who you weren’t acquainted with the rules remained as strong as ever.

All the people Percy had gone to camp with, gotten to know, they’d all moved on. There were even a couple who’d gotten married and had kids, or been successful enough that their names where known beyond the camp’s borders.

These kids around him, laughing at their tables and snatching food off each other’s plates, he hadn’t known many of them. There were plenty who’d fought under him in the wars, but they weren’t really ‘their’ wars. There would be wars that they could call their own, wars where they’d lose their friends and themselves.

Percy hoped down to his rapidly-churning stomach that they had a while to train, to hone their skills. He hoped, horrifically, that they faced their battles bravely, and if they had to bear a burden like he did, they’d get it doing something important; he hoped they’d get it saving innocent lives, or fighting for their gods, or even fighting for a just fight. Not fighting some tiny beast on a road because of a stupid misstep.

 

If Nico came out of his cabin that day, Percy didn’t see it. Percy went to the lake and blew giant bubbles, went to the stables to chat with the horses, and then went to campfire. No sign of Di Angelo.

Percy was exhausted from his troubles from the day, and his lack of sleep. He headed towards his cabin when it started to get dark, then hesitated. He stepped over to Nico’s cabin, rapped on the door.

He waited for a second without getting a response. He had a thought, that Nico might be in there and ignoring him.

“Nico.” Percy said it loud enough that Nico could hear it inside, that anyone passing by could hear it if they listened. “I’m going to bed. If you can’t…I mean, I may not be able to…just, you know where my cabin is.” He trailed off, self-conscious.

A crisp turn on his heel and he headed back to his own cabin, the one that smelled of salt and clay, where fish-horse crosses swam on the ceiling and the fountain burbled a soothing tune in the corner.

Percy stripped down to his boxers and tucked himself into his bed, rucking up the blankets into a nest.

His first nightmare was one where he was in pain, pain radiating out of every part of his body. Then he was standing over Jason with the guilt seeping into his skin. Then he was looking into his father’s eyes as the words he wished he’d never spoken or heard rang between them like a stretched rubber band. Then he was looking at Thalia, teary eyed but stubborn, looking for the entire world like she’d break him a hundred times over for the sake of her hunters. Then he was—

Nico was staring down at him, all big, dark eyes shining out of the filtered dark. He was leaning over Percy’s bed and Percy tugged him down, chest to chest.

“Umm.” Nico said it into Percy’s shoulder, hoisting his legs up onto the bed. “Are you okay?”

“No.” Percy didn’t bother to lie, not to Nico, not to Nico who’d seen him thrashing in the throes of a nightmare, not to Nico who’d stitched up his shoulder, gushing blood.

“Can I help?” Nico moved a little, trying to maneuver Percy’s knee out of his thigh.

“Can you stay?” Percy wondered it aloud into the dark.

Nico stilled a bit and tucked his face down next to Percy’s collarbone, the barest brush of lips on skin. “For how long?”

That was a question Percy couldn’t ponder. It couldn’t ask for a long time when he couldn’t know if he was feeling anything true, if Nico was staying out of pity, if tomorrow he’d become a cruel person. He’d have to make a choice whether to make Nico stay away from him for his own good, or to keep him around because he was already a cruel, selfish guy. Percy wasn’t strong enough to make that choice, not now, maybe not ever.

“I’m not asking for forever.” Percy pressed his face to the side and sniffed Nico’s hair. He smelled like cloves and something vaguely minty, cool and earthy. “I’m only asking for something meaningful. Everything you’ll give me. Please.”

Nico softly licked a warm trail along Percy’s collarbone, leaving a tingly trail in his wake. He seemed oblivious to doing it, like he was trying to orient himself to what was going on, what was happening; it was as if he could taste Percy’s emotions through his skin.

“Yes.” Nico seemed to come to a conclusion. He didn’t expound on that, and it wasn’t necessary. Percy curled a leg over Nico like an anchor, and drifted off again.

 

He woke back up with a sharp elbow in his stomach, driving the breath and the sleep right out of him.

“Shh, shh.” He desperately tried to sooth Nico back to a not-trashing, not-fighting state. Nico’s forehead was all wrinkled up, his mouth open as he gasped out half-formed words.

Percy gave up on trying to calm him, instead just grabbing his wrists away from his own skin and pinning them to his mattress. He straddled Nico’s waist so he could put all his weight on his hand holding Nico’s crossed wrists that kept trying to curl up into claws, to tear at the world around him. He hushed Nico quietly, determinedly, until Nico’s forehead smoothed out.

Immediately, it wrinkled back up again. Nico squinted.

“Nightmare.” He said unnecessarily.

“I figured.” Percy said with a shrug. He released Nico’s hand, stretching his own palm out. It was tense from holding the position so long.

“Did I hurt you?”

“Not really.” Percy rolled off of Nico, Grabbing up the nearest section of blanket that was—regrettably—the bottom part, so the blanket twisted up.

“Where.” Nico asked—more accurately, demanded. There was an air of expectation there.

Percy gave a long-suffering sigh and sat up again, brushing his hand to a spot between his navel and his ribs. His hand was batted out of the way by Nico’s, which pressed on the spot unerringly. He made an indistinguishable noise of sympathy at Percy’s wince.

“I’m sorry.” He leaned down and pressed one kiss right to the center of the spot, gently. All the breath left Percy’s lungs just as it would have if Nico had hit him, as if he had dug another boney elbow into the space beneath his ribcage.

“It’s better now.” Percy observed, like a child; like when somebody kisses a boo-boo better, it felt softer now, paled in comparison to the other sensations.

Nico looked Percy in the eye carefully, contemplatively. He touched a finger to Percy’s collarbone, and then followed the line to the side to the top of Percy’s scar, and then traced a line down it. He followed the touch with his lips, pressing a handful of kisses there. Percy winced, wished he wouldn’t touch there, not at that particular seam—not at that unnatural and misshapen place. Even as he thought it, he remembered that Nico had seen that spot in much, much worse shape. Nico had made that jagged seam.

“Better?”

“Almost.”

Percy was awash in the sudden desire to give something back—anything back. Carefully, he shifted his body weight up so he could thread a hand through Nico’s hair and tilt his head a touch.

Percy pressed his lips against Nico’s forehead, for all the demons that hid in there like the cowards they were.

Then, he sank back with a muffled groan.

“I need sleep.” He complained.

“Got big plans tomorrow, do you?”

“Yeah, actually.” Percy grinned softly, cautiously. “I think I do.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks, m’dears.  
> Tobi.


	18. The Wheels On The Bus...

_Previously: "Got big plans tomorrow, do you?"_

_"Yeah, actually." Percy grinned softly, cautiously. "I think I do."_

 

“What’s the plan?” Nico asked. He was reclining on Percy’s bed, watching the hippocampi on the ceiling with a slightly transfixed look on his face.

“Track down Reyna.” Percy had done a lot (okay, well, a little) of thinking over the night. He thought about it some more as he stretched his back with a groan. Even then, his first instinct was to grab his wrist and push his arms up, but he couldn’t. He settled for grumbling under his breath and swinging his arm a bit to loosen it up. This was always a problem, he always woke up feeling knotted and tensed. In comparison, Nico woke up nearly jelly-fied, slack-limbed like he might fall off the bed if he leaned a little farther.

“Who made these?” Nico pointed up at the ceiling, at the gently swaying metal structures.

“Tyson.” Percy smiled up at them.

“Tyson.” Nico sounded the word out, like it was something he knew very well but hadn’t heard in a while.

“Yeah.”

“Tyson’s nice.” Nico said offhandedly.

“You’ve met him?”

“Hm. He showed up with Annabeth when you first went missing, asking if I knew where you were.”

“Did you tell them?” Percy stopped stretching and stared at Nico. He hadn’t heard this story, and that was unusual, because usually every step a demigod takes is broadcast to the demigod world at large. At least, Percy’s stories used to be swapped like candy between campers, especially when the camps themselves were getting along and no one had heard the story of the Great Underwear Debacle or the Capture-The-Flag/Tissue Paper Incident.

“The truth.” Nico shrugged, still hypnotized by the swimming horse-fish. “I hadn’t seen you. That was before our little run-in at Camp Jupiter.”

“Speaking of which,” Percy couldn’t keep the note of accusation from creeping into his voice, “why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Tell anyone what?” Nico pulled his eyes away from the fish to meet Percy’s defiantly.

“Any of it.” Percy responded stupidly, then clarified. “That there were two camps. That I was alive. You could have told the camps that I was at Camp Jupiter; hell, you could have told me who I was!”

Percy hurled the last words at Nico like a dagger. He hadn’t realized, and he didn’t know, and he hadn’t thought that this would _matter_ to him until he was standing there, still stiff from sleep, with his chest heaving.

“You really want to know?” Nico sat up and leaned out into the room on his elbows, taking up more of what had been Percy’s space. He stared up at Percy, uncaring that he was smaller in that position, just staring. “Fine.

“I couldn’t tell anyone that there were two camps. I didn’t mean to find Camp Jupiter in the first place, and I didn’t know what was going on. Nobody gave me the grand tour of camps and the rules that are supposed to be there. When I did find out, my dad told me that I breathe a word to anyone until the time was right.”

“So you blindly followed your dad’s orders?” Percy didn’t mean for that to come out as harshly as it did, he was surprised. That didn’t sound like the Nico he knew.

“Nope.” Nico popped the ‘p’ sound like a gunshot into the air. “I ignored him. I told Chiron.”

“Oh.” Percy took a step back, uncertain. It would have taken more than Percy had been sure of for Nico to go to Chiron, after he’d left the camp. It was a sign of trust that Percy did not know existed between his leader and his friend.

“—And he told me to keep it under my belt, that that would be the safest option. He told me if I told anyone, I would risk hurting both camps. It might cause a war.

“Of course, that was before Hera put her scheme into play and threw a wrench in everybody’s plans.” Nico continued with a wry smile.

“Damn her.” Once upon a time, Percy would have been too terrified to ever say something like that. Now, he had very little left to fear.

“Damn her.” Nico agreed.

“So, I didn’t tell anyone about the other camps. It wasn’t hard; the only reason I went to Camp Jupiter was because I was an ambassador of sorts, and the only reason I became an ambassador was because I wanted to keep visiting Hazel.”

“You really love her, don’t you?” Percy inquired a bit wistfully. He knew he kept getting off-topic, but his ADHD kept wanting to fix on Nico, his attention swirling around the other like moths swirling around flame.

“I do.” Nico spoke it like a hushed secret, as if anyone who’d ever seen Nico Di Angelo look at his sister could doubt it.

“Do you miss her?” Percy asked quietly. He didn’t need to say her name—Bianca—he knew that Nico would know who the unspoken ‘her’ was.

Nico laughed silently, shaking in his chest and shoulders. “Of course.”

“I’m sorry.” Percy said it for all the times he hadn’t said it, for all the times he had let slide his apologies under the excuse that it wasn’t his fault. It may not have been his fault, but he was still so, so sorry for those things.

“Percy.” Nico was watching him, black eyes glittering. “About the second part…I didn’t want to.”

“What?” Percy racked his brains, dug around in the back corners of his memory. What was the second part of what he had asked?

Like he had known that Percy’s moth-like brain had been lost, Nico said, “I knew you were missing, and I didn’t want you found.”

“I’m sorry?” Percy shook his head. He was _lost_ , people were _looking_ for him, he didn’t have any idea who he was. His friend—even if Nico had not realized that Percy counted him as a friend, then—should have wanted him found, right?

“No,” Nico shook his head once, twice, a third time, like he was trying to shake out something, “I thought—I mean, I wasn’t thinking, I felt like—“

“Like what?!”

“Like you deserved it!”

Nico grabbed Percy’s hand before Percy could step backwards, _away_ from Nico and Nico’s words.

Now it was Percy’s turn to shake his head, as he was making small, vague, loose attempts to shake Nico’s hand off of his wrist. “I didn’t. I didn’t deserve that!”

 _‘I didn’t,’_ Percy thought miserably, _‘I didn’t deserve to lose my memory, to be played like a pawn. I didn’t._ ’

“Not like that.” Nico whispered. He kept reeling in Percy’s arm—Percy was no longer fighting, had gone a bit numb—until Percy was right in front of him, standing between his legs, and Nico’s hand still held Percy’s in a death grip. “I wanted you to be out of this war.

You’d fought enough. You’d already given too much to that war; I wanted you to be able to leave, to be done. You didn’t deserve to keep being dragged into that, over and over again.”

Percy let that settle into his mind like a sinking leaf. Nico didn’t want to hurt him—Nico wanted him safe, separate, done with the war.

There was the difference between him and Nico. Percy felt he deserved the fight, and it was his duty to fight until he couldn’t anymore. But Nico, Nico who wasn’t a soldier, but a warrior, and Nico knew how to be selfish, sometimes. Percy envied him for that.

He felt his throat close up. Tentatively, he turned his hand over. There. That was all he could give, right now.

Nico latched onto that, wove their fingers together. He didn’t offer an apology for making Percy panic, for inflicting that momentary pain. He just squeezed their hands and carefully, hesistantly, rested his forehead against the edge of Percy’s ribs, inches away from the bruise he had left last night and the kiss that made it better.

 

“You said Reyna?” Nico asked, tucking his dirty clothes into his backpack and sliding his knives down into their sheaths.

“Yep.” Percy confirmed.

“Going to tell me why?”

“In a bit.” Percy enjoyed trailing Nico along a little, finding humor in the little edges. Nico sniffed indignantly.

“Fine, then.” He made a big show of straightening his back and walking a little faster, trying to walk speedily in front of Percy.

“So, how are we going to get there?” Nico made as if to touch Percy’s arm, but Percy shook his head.

“The old-fashioned way.” Percy pointed to the road, over the hill that once housed Thalia’s tree.

He didn’t miss the way Nico’s shoulders relaxed a bit. It had occurred to him the last couple times Nico had shadow-traveled that he was relying on Nico for the cheating-way of traveling, but he always saw the dark circles materialize beneath Nico’s eyes. He knew Nico didn’t mind, but it made him feel bad anyway.

Percy had some cash he’d grabbed from his envelope under the bed (there’s a reason he keeps it there: it’s because everyone thinks it’s too obvious and that Percy wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep it there, so he keeps it there. It’s like reverse psychology or whatever) so he could pay for bus tickets.

The walk into town was long and Percy was feeling lazy, so he summoned the Chariot of Eternal Damnation and its owners, reciting the chant and throwing the coin into the road.

“Hello, ladies.” He greeted the malformed triplets (triplets? Were they triplets, or just sisters?). One, big, bloodshot eye stared back at him dolefully.

“Perseus.” One of them said, and two of them lisped. He still had no idea who was who.

“Percy.” Nico practically growled at him. Percy shot him a don’t-kill-me, sorry-not-sorry look and clambered into the backseat. He turned around and offered Nico a hand in, which Nico accepted, squeezing a harder than necessary, making Percy’s hand bones rub together.

Percy told the women to take them to the nearest bus stop in New York, and they were off like a demented, dizzying bullet.

“I’m going to kill you.” Nico hissed in Percy’s ear after a particularly violent turn.

“You can try.” Percy countered.

“WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR ARM?” Wasp, er, Tempest interrogated as soon as they were on what was probably a road. It seemed like, while she didn’t want to be rude in front of Thalia, she had no such compulsions just with him and Nico.

“I lost it.” Percy had to speak up to be heard over the bickering in the front seat over the tooth.

“BATS AHBEOUS.” Another one of the Grey Sisters yelled crankily as she swatted away her sister’s strikes, and Percy deciphered it as ‘that’s obvious’. Sassy old bat.

“WHAT HAPPENED TO THE KNOW-IT-ALL BLONDIE?” Anger—or maybe it was Wasp—demanded. Loudly.

“WHO CARES?” Wasp—or, maybe it was Tempest—screamed. “THESE TWO ARE CUTE!”

“I DIDN’T SAY THEY WEREN’T CUTE!” Anger—Tempest—The one with the tooth—insisted, shoving the one who was driving. “THEY’RE VERY CUTE TOGETHER! LIKE ZEUS AND GANYMEDE USED TO BE!”

Wasp (Wasp?) whipped around to drill her eye right into Percy. That meant, of course, that she wasn’t watching the road. The dove across two lanes of traffic, horns honking in every direction.

“YOU’RE VERY CUTE.” She insisted, like she thought the two of them were in the back, terrified at not being as cute as Zeus and Ganymede.

Holy Hades. Zeus and Ganymede? Percy had eaten lunch with that guy once when he was visiting Annabeth on Olympus. Never again.

“We’re very cute.” Percy simpered at Nico, trying desperately to make a little light of the situation, less as if they were being compared to their uncle and his extra-marital gay lover.

“So I’ve heard.” Nico said sarcastically.

“BUT I THINK GANYMEDE WAS YOUNGER THAN HIM.” It seemed Tempest felt this needed to be shrieked to the bus drivers around them, so that there was no way Percy would miss the fact that Ganymede had been younger than Nico, apparently. As if Percy wasn’t already worried about the age gap.

“That’s sick.” Percy wasn’t quite sure if Nico was referring to the way they just spun through an intersection or the fact that Ganymede was apparently very young.

“Wait, how old are you?” Percy asked, hoping that he wouldn’t one day qualify as a registered offender of any law.

“Eh,” Nico looked out the window for a second, made a face, and turned back, “sixteen-ish. But,” he quickly added, trying to allay Percy’s fear of jail-time (not that they’d done anything that would put him in jail, but still), “I was born over eighty years ago. I’m old enough to be your grandfather.”

Both of their faces wrinkled up at the same time.

“OH!” Tempest—whoever she was—exclaimed. “YOU TWO ARE SUCH A CUTE COUPLE!”

“We’re not a—” Percy finally got around to denying it, but just let his argument die there. They weren’t a couple, not in any way he could define, but he didn’t currently have a term that would make due here. To his side, Nico laughed at Percy’s loss.

“Shut it.” Percy muttered.

“Aw, don’t be mean.” Nico muttered back. “We’re officially cuter than Zeus and Ganymede. Revel in it.”

Percy made a noise of protest that was lost in the screaming of the brakes on the steely-grey cab.

 

“Thanks.” Percy tossed the Drachma in the rough direction of the front seat. If the world would stop spinning, it would be easier to aim. From the happy shriek and two unhappy ones, he guessed the money hit its mark.

“Next time, let’s walk.” Nico suggested. He was nearly doubled over, hand against a streetlight.

“That’s probably smart.” Percy said.

Their eyes met, and they burst into laughter. The raucous laughing drew the attention of an older man at the nearly bus stop, and he sniffed at them, which just made them laugh harder.

Eventually it hit the part where Percy wasn’t even laughing at anything in particular, only for the relief of laughing.

When they calmed down, Percy had to reach out a hand to a streetlight, heaving in breathes. Nico was hiccupping near him.

“I needed that.” Percy brushed a hand over his eyes, wiping away tears—finally, not of sorrow or frustration, but of happiness.

“Me too.” Nico let out a quick bark of laughter, like a residual bubble. He was still hiccupping.

“You know I need you, right?” Percy let it slide out before he could double-check himself.

Nico snapped up. He would have looked a lot less serious if he wasn’t jumping and making little ‘hic-hic-hic’ noises every few seconds.

“Don’t overthink it.” Percy cautioned. He didn’t want Nico thinking this was a promise of any kind.

“Don’t be silly.” That was rich, coming from the guy who was currently flicking his own face in what was probably a really old-fashioned method of getting rid of hiccups. “I knew that already.”

“Well, good.” Percy felt awkward, having said it. He knew Nico knew it—it was on his list, for the god’s sakes! It had felt like it needed saying, anyway.

Nico gave Percy an indulgent look, like he knew something Percy was only know starting to figure out.

“I need to sit down, before I—hic!—hurl.”

 

Between the wobbly steps, the over-zealous laughter, and Nico’s hiccups, they looked more than a little tipsy. It came as no surprise when the old man (in suspenders and boots, like they needed any convincing he was old as dirt) watched them warily and critically the twenty minutes until the bus came.

“Two tickets to…” Percy consulted the map. A lifetime of riding New York buses left him an expert at navigating between lines to get to where he needed to. Meanwhile, Nico stared dumbfounded at all the levers. Percy figured out where to go, told the driver, and paid for the tickets. He led the way to the back, snagging a seat against the very back wall. Instinct told him to keep his back protected and his front open.

He slid his ticket in his pocket and handed Nico his.

They had a whole country to cross, literally. It was going to be a very long bus ride.

One hour later, they changed buses. This time Percy walked Nico through the process, so that the guy wouldn’t be totally lost if it ever came down to it. Nico didn’t need a lot of tutoring there; years of having to make his way around the new-and-improved America had made him excel at picking things up quickly.

Another hour.

And another.

They grabbed sandwiches at a stop, and got on the next bus.

They bought a book of crossword puzzles and argued over the words.

It was terrifyingly domestic.

They ran into something with several tentacle-y arms and a cloud of noxious gas.

It was slightly less-terrifyingly domestic.

“Are we almost there?” Nico griped, when it started getting dark. The buses ran all night, so at some point they’d have to get some sleep.

“Nope.”

“Ugh.” Nico curled up into a ball of sharp, pointy bits and growled, “You take first watch.”

“Yes, sir.” Percy said sarcastically, but Nico was already ignoring him. Percy waited for a moment and fished out a few pain pills and dry-swallowed them.

His shoulder was killing him.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thanks for all the lovely reviews!  
> Tobi.  
> p.s. I’m thinking of doing a little one-shot in this ‘verse taking a quick look at Piper. Thoughts?


	19. Roads To New Rome.

_Previously: “Ugh.” Nico curled up into a ball of sharp, pointy bits and growled, “You take first watch.” “Yes, sir.” Percy said sarcastically, but Nico was already ignoring him. Percy waited for a moment and fished out a few pain pills and dry-swallowing them._

_His shoulder was killing him._

 

 

Percy could hear the rush of the sea, the grumbling of cars, the constant chatter of people overhead as he neared the entrance to the tunnel that lead to Camp Jupiter.

That was a major difference between the camps. Camp Jupiter, even though it was a lot quieter through the tunnel and all that, was still a bustling community. Camp Half-Blood was always more…silent. Apprehensive. Always expecting to see something bad happen.

The guards at the tunnel (trying desperately to look intrigued by their card game but shiftily looking at the boys—and Percy’s arm—out of the corner of their eyes) waved them past with nothing but some suspicious looks that probably came with the package. Reyna’s soldiers knew to trust no man, woman, god, faun or other species no matter how many times they’d walked in and out of camp.

Percy tried to remember their names, but couldn’t. When he was praetor he had done his ultimate best to remember the names of those who stood under him (metaphorically, not literally). It was a respectful thing to do—no—it was the responsibility of a leader to know the people who were willing to die for you.

But then, when Percy knew the names of all the people who were willing to die for him, it hurt like hell if they actually did. In his mind he saw them, all of them, in their funeral shrouds, gradually going up in flames. Their names burned like the fire behind his eyes, scorching like a reminder of his responsibilities. Some of the names burned a lot brighter, some of the names nearly blinding in their intensity.

Jason’s pyre had been like that; it burned so hot and so bright that, for a short while, the area had looked like daytime. According to his wishes—his choices—his funeral had been of the Greek style, with a shroud stitched with dedication.

In one final act of defiance, the camps—mainly Piper, who begged an Athena camper to teach her to sew—stitched a curving, swirling, free-flowing pattern of blues and whites, streaks of gold and pale sunshine yellows.

Clouds.

There wasn’t a clear image of a lightning bolt anywhere on the draped fabric—only a shadowed shape hidden behind one of the many clouds.

In the end, they all gave something.

Annabeth and Frank drew up the design, hunched over a dozen sheets of paper, scratching on the blank surfaces with rough strokes and then small, slight ones.

Hazel and Piper sewed it all together; Hazel provided moral support more than anything, her curly hair and soft edges providing a shoulder to cry on. Piper, and her dead-looking eyes, made Percy shrink back into himself. There was a time when they finally managed to drag her away from her cocoon of linens to make her eat some food and she left a vivid red fingerprint on the door, having poked herself with the needle repeatedly in her inexperience.

Percy had collected the wood. Normally, the whole camp would pitch in and get it done in an hour or so, with each person gathering wood or protecting those who were from the beasties in the woods. Percy told everyone he’d do it by himself, when they first started to head towards the tree line and he waved them back. He wanted to do it by himself. So he dragged large limbs around until he was sticky with sweat and covered up to his elbows in stinging welts, and he took far too many risks with his back to the trees. He felt he owed it to Jason as a futile apology. If he killed the guy, at least he should help build his funeral pyre.

Leo started the flame. It took him two tries to get the fire to stick; his hand kept flickering out, fire vanishing in the face of the shroud. Leo had tears running down his face and he didn’t wipe at them, like he didn’t care. His entire attitude screamed that Leo Valdez’s friend was gone, and he couldn’t be bothered with anything else.

The fire burned hot and hard, turning everything in it to blazing ash, including the boy—man—who’d given his life for the cause they all fought for. He’d died a hero, which was something Percy doubted he’d ever be able to do.

Since Percy couldn’t even manage that, couldn’t even take the place of a better man for the right of dying like a hero, he stopped caring about being responsible. He stopped remembering the names of the soldiers.

Now he wished he hadn’t. He passed the guards with no comment, the thin air dying around them.

“You alright?” Nico murmured to him as their feet slapped the concrete floor of the tunnel.

“No.” Percy said honestly. “You?”

“Not even a little.” Nico swallowed loud enough for Percy to hear him, for the noise to echo off the walls in a noise like startled birds. “What are you thinking about?”

Nico had a way of asking those things. Percy knew Nico knew he was thinking of something sad, something drowning on guilt, a red-hazy filtered memory. He also knew Nico couldn’t help himself—Nico saw a hurt and he wanted to push, like a child with a bruise, to make it hurt a little more. It was one of the reasons he was so good with blood, and with the dead. Nico saw Percy flinch in the dark and he zeroed in with the intensity of a bird of prey.

“What are you thinking about?” He repeated, dropping his voice a little lower, a little more intimidating, a little more force in the words. “Are you thinking about Thalia? About your father, or your mother? Are you thinking about…”

“Jason’s funeral.” Percy stopped walking for a second to interrupt him. Damn Nico.

Nico nodded. He let the answer dangle there, like he was hoping Percy would say more but he wasn’t going to push it. Percy was glad he didn’t.

 

“Percy!” Reyna welcomed him with open arms, or at least open doors. Her arms remained at her side, one on her hip, the other on her dog’s head. She stood, regal as always, in the doorway to her boarding rooms. Lucky thing about being praetor: you get your own room, instead of sharing.

It was odd to see her in normal clothes, jeans and a blouse, because the only times Percy had seen her were during war times. Those times, she wore armor like people wore skin. It was simply an accepted part of her, an extension of herself. Without it she looked not quite whole—she looked like Percy felt.

“Nico.” Reyna acknowledged Nico with a nod, which he returned coolly. While Reyna and Nico were amicable, they were both unsettled by the other and Percy couldn’t help but see the two of them as opposites. The only similarity was their skills with battle: Reyna the leader of a legion who won the war of centuries, and Nico as the strategist for an army of the dead.

That was one match-off he would not want to bet on. If he had to pick, it would probably be Nico: Reyna believed in the Roman way of doing things, of honor. Nico had little respect for morals outside his own code, which was already skewed. Out of the two, Reyna had more training, more soldiers, more strength and charisma; but with the bearing of hair-triggered bomb of dead people, Nico was the more dangerous.

“What brings you to my neck of the woods?” Reyna gestured him in and turned on a coffee pot. Yet another habit of Reyna’s: to drink coffee like breathing air, to fuel her body with all the caffeine it could take.

The one time he’d seen her stop drinking, it was after Jason’s death. She slept for the longest time, until Annabeth had been worried that she was depressed. It turns out she wasn’t, she was just world-weary and felt no need to stay awake and face the world. The War was won, and she was fighting the same war as the rest of the chosen ones, the war against their own existential crises.

The world was just chock-full of Jason reminders today. What a terrible idea on someone’s part.

“We’re looking for refuge, and information.” Percy spoke up before Nico could.

Reyna offered them each a cup of coffee. Nico accepted, and Percy declined; he had enough damage done to his body without adding anything else, even if he knew coffee was a very small vice. Reyna stirred a spoon of sugar into her mug and sipped on it before answering. When she did, it was with the analytical voice she always used when making decisions regarding Percy, these days.

She was one of the blessed, few people to hold a grudge against Percy for his betrayals.

“Seeking refuge from what, and information regarding what?” She reached down a hand to pet her dog, the gold one, softly. The reminder was subtle, but as clear as if she had spoken it out loud.

_‘Don’t lie.’_

Percy licked his lips, “Refuge from campers, nightmares, and the outside world.”

Reyna smiled thinly; she knew the struggle of not being able to fit in the mortal world, and not being able to breathe freely in the demigod one.

Percy continued, “And information regarding the whereabouts of a certain character, Oegathis.”

To his side, Nico sat up slowly but deliberately, and set down his cup. The message was quite clear: _‘I don’t know what you’re planning, and I don’t like that._ ’

Percy leaned the slightest bit into Nico space, pleading with him not to question in front of Reyna.

Nico picked his cup up and took a casual sip, raising his eyebrows at Reyna’s querying look.

“I’m unaware of where Oegathis is.” Reyna said slowly. “But there may be a member of the legion or of the town who does. You’re welcome to stay as long as you need.”

“Thank you.” Percy stood up and Nico instantly followed.

“Hold on,” Reyna stood up, too, moving a hand as if to gesture them back down again. “Why do you ask?”

“Is that important?” Percy answered with a question.

“It may be.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to know you’re not going to do something stupid.”

“And you can’t just trust me?” Percy asked her. He didn’t know whether her own dogs would jump her if she lied, but he imagined he’d know, anyway.

“No.” Brown eyes met green, and whatever there may have once been there snapped like a taught rubber band. “I can’t do that.”

“Okay, then.” Percy jerked his head away and looked at Nico. One step towards the door and Nico fell into step with him. “We’ll stay in the barracks.”

“Percy!” Reyna blurted before he could clear the door.

Percy turned back. He didn’t say anything. Nothing at this point could undo what he did to break Reyna’s trust, and nothing she could say could make him feel less shredded about that.

“Be careful.” She said it like an order, like he was still the legionnaire on probatio.

Percy started to say yes, but realized that the last thing he wanted was a death by shining golden doggie. He closed his mouth and left the room.

 

As they walked through the training area, ghosts and soldiers alike moved around them, never stopping to say anything.

The week after he’d killed Jason, after he was running from the Greek gods and their harsh words, he’d fled to the camp. They wouldn’t refuse him, their past leader, the one they hailed as a hero. They still respected him as a warrior, but no longer as a human. In the way gossip always travels, one person heard it and it passed like a wildfire through the settlement of New Rome.

_‘Percy Jackson killed Jason Grace.’_

With time they learned the whole story, about how Percy didn’t feel like he had a choice. It didn’t change much.

Now, he could hear the murmurs like wind against his skin. They traveled quietly through the people.

_‘Percy Jackson lost an arm.’_

Percy pushed his head down a little bit, not meeting a single eye on the street. In his mind they were all watching him, seeing just how far he’d fallen.

Not a single person stopped him, and for that he was grateful.

Finally his feet hit the step up to the door of a barrack. Percy reached out his arm (just the one. only just the one) and opened the door.

Bunks lined walls on his right and left, stacked two high and made up with sterile-looking and uniform white sheets and blankets. The floor was stone like most other things in New Rome and worn down the middle from centuries of being walked on. There were eight bunks and four of them were claimed already, two of which had two staring legionnaires stretched out on them.

Percy met their eyes, one set of blue and another of grey, belligerently.

“Top or bottom?” He cleared his throat and asked Nico.

Nico’s eyes flitted over the bunks and the walls. “Top.” He decided.

Percy slid his backpack onto the bunk closest to the door and pulled out the box underneath it. Years ago they implemented the use of lock-boxes under the bunks. Percy sat and thought about what his code was going to be, staring at the round dial. For some reason, he couldn’t think of one.

“I’ve got a better idea.” Nico said above Percy’s head. He rapped his knuckles on the stiff mattress. “Let’s bunk in the Pluto temple.”

“Is that allowed?” Nico led the way out of the barracks again. Percy wasn’t worried about breaking the rules, he was just curious.

“I’m a senator, and you’re a praetor, and we’re both pretty bad-ass. Who’s going to tell us we can’t?”

 

The Pluto temple was in better shape than the Neptune one, but that wasn’t saying a lot. At least respect for Percy had gotten Neptune’s temple a little fixed-up back when he was praetor (at least, they got rid of the cobwebs and rotten fruit). Pluto’s temple was small and shone slightly from a distance because of all the gems and precious stones embedded in its surface.

“Lovely.” Percy remarked sarcastically as they stepped into the dark and dreary temple. There were skulls carved out crystal capping every torch that lined the walls, casting eye-hole shaped light spots on the wall. “Cheery, this place is.”

“Oh, shut it.” Nico grabbed some thick candles from under a table-like fixture and lit them, setting them on the altar with a ‘sorry, dad’. Between the torches and the candles, the small room was practically cheery. There was enough room for a couple of sleeping bags on the floor in an area safe from unintentional head-bonking on the sharp edges of the altar and braziers that flanked it.

Nico bent down and rummaged beneath the altar, making faces into the dark until he grabbed what he was looking for.

“Aha!” He pulled out a stack of blankets with a flourish.

“If I could clap, I would be clapping.” Percy promised dryly.

“Damn right.” Nico tossed the blankets out and looked over at Percy from his kneeling position. “Do we need to separate the blankets for the two of us?”

“Nah.” Why bother with it if they’d end up sharing anyway?

Percy eyed the blankets. They looked more comfortable than many of the places he’d stayed before. Sadly, none of these had miniscule dancing skeletons on them.

“Why do you have blankets in here, anyway?” Percy asked the son of Hades.

“I stay in here when I visit Camp Jupiter.”

“Why don’t you stay in the barracks?” Percy crouched and slid his backpack under the alter into a well-sized cubby. It was a perfect hiding place back there.

“You know why.”

He did know why. In his mind’s eye, he could see why Nico didn’t stay in the barracks: ostracized and excluded, there was no way Nico’d be comfortable staying around the legionnaires who didn’t want him there. Percy shook his head so Nico wouldn’t say it out loud. He didn’t want to hear it stated.

 

“This food isn’t that good.” Nico whispered to Percy around a leg of chicken at dinner.

“You’re spoiled.” Percy retorted. “All those foods from the underworld have you rotten.”

“I was rotten before the underworld.” Nico said humorously.

“Don’t.” Percy breathed. Suddenly, strangely, he didn’t want Nico joking about that. It was everything else—the whole fucking world—that was rotten; not Nico.

Nico looked at Percy and rolled his eyes before taking an exaggerated bite of chicken and moaning.

“Knock it off!” Percy groaned and swatted at him.

The walk back to the temple was comfortable until they reached the door.

Then, alone and in the dark, everything seemed to be magnified. What had started out as simple comfort had morphed into something more meaningful, and therefore more dangerous. Percy was feeling out for stable territory, where he knew he wouldn’t make a mistake and drive off the one person he needed more than anything.

He could almost hear Nico’s brain working in the same circles a few feet away.

“We should stop overthinking.” Percy suggested.

“First good idea you’ve had in a long time.” Nico said back. Percy laughed and that was it, that was done.

There was the usual practice of settling into a very carefully ‘not-touching’ position, which rapidly deteriorated into Percy trying to settle his boney hip against Nico’s.

As long as he could feel that body against his and know it wasn’t leaving, he was okay. . .

 

“Percy!” The door slammed open and bright, white sunlight dashed across Percy’s face as he blinked towards the rude and sudden awakening. There was a silhouette in the entrance with a curved blade out and ready. “We’re under attack!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: If you’ve got any questions, comments, or problems please PM me or contact me on Tumblr (dickcampbelllgansey).  
> That’s it. All I wanted to say at this point. Carry on. :)


	20. If You Love Her... (Let Her Go).

Chapter 20: If You Love Her (Let Her Go)

_Previously:  “Percy!  Nico!”  The door slammed open and bright, white sunlight dashed across Percy’s face as he blinked towards the rude and sudden awakening.  There was a silhouette in the entrance with a curved blade out and ready.  “We’re under attack!”_

 

“What?”  Percy hopped up as best he could, sore and tired from the night on the floor.  He went for his sword and stepped on Nico’s hand, reaching for his own sword.  “Hazel…?”

It was Hazel in the doorway, curly hair in a rough mess everywhere.  She had her curved sword out and a mouse on her shoulder, one that Percy assumed was Frank. 

“Yeah.”  Hazel was out of breath.  She darted in past Percy to engulf Nico into a hug.  Nico clutched her for a second with a pained expression before he pushed her away and grabbed his swords.  Hazel snagged his arm, and then Percy’s, before running towards the door with them in tow. 

“What’s going on?”  Nico asked.  That was a very good question.  Percy shifted Riptide in his hand so he could grab his armor of the floor and slide it over his head awkwardly.  He’d have to fasten it in a minute. 

“I’m still not sure.”  Hazel admitted as she led them, weaving, through a mess of legionnaires in armor and street clothes, all intent with focused faces.  A few people spared glances at the trio—quartet, counting the mouse that had migrated to the hood of Hazel’s hoodie—but kept moving, kept walking or running past.  Percy bumped into several people but didn’t stop to say anything, just kept following Hazel’s grip on his bicep. 

“Who’s attacking?”  Percy couldn’t see an enemy, yet. 

“They’re automatons.”  Hazel was chewing at her lip with a worried expression on her face, flexing the fingers circling Percy’s arm.  “They’ve got wings—“

“And freaking big, razor-like claws?”  Percy suggested.

He knew because one of them had fallen out of the sky above them with a sound like a dump-truck full of pots and pans, ringing through the air.  The ground shook with the impact of its hit and dirt flew up through the air in a cloud. 

Percy hoped to any god that was listening that no one had been standing there before that thing fell down.

The beast looked vaguely reptilian, slightly insect-like, with a large, bumpy abdomen and four thick legs; it was easily the size of a city bus, even collapsed on itself like that.  Each of the legs, the spines on the skull, and a few random clusters on the body bristled with feet-long prongs of metal.  They looked razor-sharp and glaringly, treacherously dangerous.  Even the wings, both twenty feet long and folded like an accordion, had sharp, blade-like edges. 

One melon-sized, electric blue eye stared dead and empty over at them.

“Jesus.”  Nico exhaled shakily and Hazel sucked in a deep breath, the first Percy had heard from her in a few moments. 

To Percy’s knowledge, there were only three people who were capable of this kind of a work, this elegantly cruel design. 

Hephaestus, Daedalus, and Leo Valdez. 

“Can you control it?”  Nico’s voice was very far away, at first, but the ringing in Percy’s ears declines slightly and it was clearer.  Percy couldn’t think about the how or the why right now—he had to focus on what was happening, for better or worse.

“No.”  Hazel set Frank-mouse down on the ground and he took off, changing mid-stride into a larger furry dog, darting between legs and skirting around the pointy bits of the fallen monster.  “It’s warded, or something.”

Percy’s mouth was dry.  He swallowed a couple of times, finding his missing voice.  “How many are there?”

“I counted two dozen still fighting.  We’re losing fighters, fast.  The third, fifth and first cohorts are out on quests—we don’t have enough people to protect New Rome, like this.”

“Jesus.”  Percy echoed Nico, and the three shared a despairing look. 

“Are there any down by the river?”  Percy turned his attention on Hazel again.

“Yes.”  She pointed towards another street, the curve in the river.  “That way.” 

“Okay,” Percy nodded, wrestling with the armor strap under his bad shoulder, “That’s where I’ll be.  We’ll get this taken care of quick, and then worry about it.” 

It was too easy, too ingrained, to be standing there giving a pre-battle pep talk to these two children of Hades.  It was something he’d done too many times before to think before doing it. 

Hazel nodded back, mouth set grim, and whistled for her horse.  Nico tucked a sword under his arm and finished tightening Percy’s rib strap down to the skin, fingers lingering there under the damaged joint. 

“You be careful.”  Percy reminded him before he turned to go.  “Don’t take any chances, and be careful.”

Nico raised a brow humorlessly, but smiled softly.  “Will you?”

“I—” Percy nearly promised Nico, but couldn’t bring himself to say it.  There was a difference: Percy needed to know Nico would come back to him, but Nico didn’t need anyone, and Nico would be a lot safer if Percy wasn’t around him all the time. 

He was already broken; he could afford a little well-placed carelessness here and there.   

“Okay,” Nico seemed to realize that Percy couldn’t give him a good answer to that question, so he switched tracks.  “Come back to me, whatever happens.”

“You got it.”  Percy said cockily, more confidently than he felt.  That was one thing he could say as a truth—like he was brave enough to stay away. 

It was Nico’s turn to nod, crisply, like Percy had finally given him the right answer. 

 

There were three of them—Percy mentally dubbed them, ‘Metal Bugs’—hanging around the bend in the river.  Two of them were sitting in lumpy, potato-peeler piles on the shore, snarling at nothing in particular in whirring tones.  The third was hovering over the water, flying back and forth and keeping watch.  It made a screeching noise when it’s wings moved, like a knife rubbing tin. 

That had to stop, it was very annoying. 

Percy felt the pull of the river in his lower stomach—the smallest twitch of attention and the river started to ripple, just as one of the Metal Bugs on the shore noticed him and screamed out to its friends. 

Percy had to work harder than he used to in order to get the water to listen to him, to heed his words. 

But it did, eventually, listen. 

A huge wave of water under his control swatted the buzzing Metal Bug out of the sky like a fly, sending it careening into the water.  It snapped and crackled, shorting out when the electricity met the water.

Percy: 1.  Metal Bugs: 0. 

Percy was driven from his self-congratulatory state by Metal Bug #2, enraged at the death of his comrade (friend?), throwing his very nasty sharp self at Percy. 

Percy ducked and swore, running for the side.  He waved his sword behind him and heard the ‘clang!’ of metal hitting metal.  Hopefully, his armor was strong enough to protect what he couldn’t.  One long shred of something hit his shoulder, denting the armor in, but not breaking it.  Yet. 

Percy pulled more water out of the river as he ran parallel to it, drawing it into a two-story funnel.  When he got a good handle on where his buzzing attacker was he cast the water down on it.  Unfortunately, that meant he was caught in the same water as the electrocuted Metal Bug. 

The power surged through the water near him, and he just had time to think, “Nico will be pissed,” and “this is going to hurt,” before the surge his hit body. 

 

It was dark.  Very, very dark.  It was such a dark that it was like it was pushing on all his other senses, making his eyes hurt, his ears empty-feeling with no sound, his skin untouched by even the ground. 

It was off-putting and he wished he could see anything, even a pinprick of dimness.

It was soothing—the dark was normally a terrifying presence, but now it seemed to sing to him, to lull him.  This was a safe dark, a dark that wouldn’t hurt him. 

He wanted to stay here.  He couldn’t remember what home was like, exactly, but he remembered it hurt and left an ache in his stomach and his heart region. 

What was back there for him?  Names danced on the tips of his tongue, but he couldn’t speak them or even form the letters with his lips.  They didn’t matter—there was only the dark.  He swallowed those names back down. 

Two rose back up again. 

  1.   Nico was fighting out there and he wanted Percy to come back.  Percy wanted to go back, because being around the Son of Hades hurt him, and he liked that kind of hurt. 
  2.   Poseidon was out there, disappointed.  He’d disappointed his god—his father—and he wanted to put that right someday, after he’d done a million things to hurt the Earthshaker.  Until that day when he managed to prove himself (which was looking so unlikely, now), he would hurt Poseidon in little ways, little paper cuts, for every hurt he couldn’t let himself feel. 



Nico and Poseidon.

There were other names, but they seemed worthless now; they were scrap paper blowing in the wind. 

 

His arm itched.  It was the first time he was aware of his body. 

His arm shouldn’t itch, something reminded him.  His arm wasn’t there. 

His chest hurt, too.  His heart was pounding in his chest, making repetitive aches.  It should just stop pounding—wouldn’t that be lovely? 

‘Why won’t it just stop?’ he mused, slightly annoyed.  It wasn’t stopping, and it should have, because he was starting to remember the fact that he should be dead a dozen times over by now.  He wasn’t because someone was stopping him.

“Percy?”  the voice came at him like through water, filtered and wavery.  He tried to snatch at it with a  hand, but his hand wouldn’t wave. 

He was aware of the ground under him, and a white-noise of blades and screeches.  That, and a mind-numbing pain in his _everything._  

“Ow.”  That was his voice.  He managed a word! 

“Oh, thank god.”  That was a girl’s voice, and not his.  He dragged his eyelids up a millimeter at a time. 

Two faces swam over him, an echo of another time. 

— _He focused in on Hazel’s golden eyes, swimming and shimmering above him._

_“Hey, Percy.”_

_“Hey.”  He managed.  Gods, it hurt to talk._

_“Nico’s going to fix you up.  Are you hurting?”_

_“Like hell.”_

_“I’m so sorry.  Annabeth and I are both okay.”_ —

Percy let his eyes fall shut again, sinking deep into the memory. 

“Percy!”  The girl yelled again, right in his ear.  She flicked his face a couple of times. 

“Hazel.”  Percy tried to say it, failed, and tried again.  He couldn’t quite get enough air outward to make the words.  She didn’t need to flick his face again.  “Hazel.”

“Yeah, I’m here.”  She grinned down at him. 

“Nico?”  Percy managed to get that one a little more air, to where even he could hear it.  

“Yep.”  Nico swam above him when he opened his eyes again, bleary and washed-out. 

Percy blinked.  The pain in his chest was making it hard to focus.  “This had better not become a habit.” 

Hazel laughed, coughing with surprise.  Nico smiled and ran one tentative finger along Percy’s hairline, brushing back wet hair.  He hesitated and looked over at Hazel, to see if she caught the motion.  She apparently didn’t, a look of relief crossed Nico’s face, and a pang struck Percy’s heart that wasn’t entirely physical. 

“It won’t.”  Hazel said reassuringly.  If only she knew, Percy thought.

  “Someone had to restart my heart?”  Percy guessed, going off his sore chest and his knowledge of electrical accidents, thanks to Cabin Nine. 

“Yes.”  Nico’s head whipped around when another shriek of metal-on-metal sounded.  Percy lifted his head to see two lithe legionnaires darting around the last Metal Bug in the area, dodging razor wings and claws.

Percy went to stand up and reach for Riptide, but couldn’t make it any farther than two inches off the ground before collapsing onto the dirt again.  He was weak as a kitten, couldn’t do a damned thing.  The guilt ate at him. 

“Go,” he started to tell one of the two sitting there to go help, but Hazel was already pushing both him and Nico—who looked exhausted in the way that meant he’d been summoning dead people—back down.    

“I’ve got it.”  She insisted.  Hazel was always trying to prove she was a valuable member of a group, and she never seemed to realize that all of them already knew she was.

 

“No, please, Jupiter, no.” 

The boy was young, a gangly teenager, and his name was Ryan. 

The girl in the dirt was named Clarissa, and they were in love. 

Percy could see they were in love because the minute he’d limped over to them and Nico had rushed to Clarissa’s side to put more pressure on the gaping hole in her side, Ryan had collapsed to the dirt like a puppet whose strings had been cut.  He’d been doing nothing but sitting there, tears streaming down his face, and muttering the word no, calling on a list of gods that weren’t going to answer. 

All the beasts were defeated, lying in clumps of metal, but the damage was done.  Anybody with medical training was called to the lines to do what Nico was doing—try to see if there was anything to be done, or to help even if they knew it was hopeless.

Clarissa’s arm had been shaved off, along with a large strip of her side and one ear.  She was crying, tears mixing with the blood.  She couldn’t understand anything being said around her, she kept trying to fight off Nico so Ryan had to hold down her other side while Nico pressed onto her side. 

“How…” Percy’s entire being was being pulled to her and her side, like a magnet.  She was like him here.  He could see the gore and blood inside her, open and gaping, agonizing, “Can I help?” 

Nico shook his head. 

“There’s…” he trailed off when he looked over at Ryan.  Ryan had blue eyes that shone with tears and a smear of scarlet blood across his cheek, and he was clearly just daring Nico to finish that and break him completely.  “I’m doing everything.”  He said instead of the obvious, ‘there’s nothing to be done.’

There was over a gallon of blood being drunk down by the earth around them, under Percy’s knees as he knelt opposite Nico, next to Ryan. 

Ryan seemed to gather the unsaid from the way Nico did nothing but hold on the wound and pray, delaying the inevitable. 

“No,” he repeated dumbly.  He pushed back and up, and Percy surged into his place to keep holding the seizing woman down.  Clarissa had curly, blonde hair that tangled in Percy’s hand on her shoulder.  He’d bet, if she opened her eyes, they’d be slate grey. 

Ryan returned with a leather pouch.  He fished out a compressed block—like a bouillon cube—of brownish-gold color, and he pushed it between Clarissa’s lips and down her throat. 

Nico sucked in a breath that rattled past his teeth.  “Ambrosia?”

“Yes.”  Ryan cupped a hand over Clarissa’s cheek and looked into her hazy eyes.  “Stay with me.”  He begged softly. 

Percy wished he hadn’t said that.  He wished he hadn’t had ambrosia on him, because the blood was pulsing with renewed vigor past Nico’s fingers and the pulse along Percy’s palm settled out again just to ratchet back down, slowly. 

“We’re losing her again.”  Nico whispered to Percy, eyes never wavering from the blood sliding under his hands. 

Ryan dug out another cube and pressed it into her mouth past a cry of pain. 

Percy saw the way this would go.  Ryan would feed her ambrosia, enough that this would last for a long time. 

He could keep it up for an hour—another hour with the girl he loved, the girl he pressed his forehead against, tears mingling.

Maybe even forever.  Maybe he could keep giving her the god’s food, enough that she wouldn’t bleed out just yet.  She’d be indefinitely unable to die, unable to live.

That wasn’t a miracle, it was torture. 

“Hey,”  Percy let up on her shoulder and grabbed Ryan’s wrist loosely.  Moving sent a radiating pain through every part of his body, but this was important, this thing needed doing.  “Don’t.”

“I don’t want her to die.”  Ryan was a strong man—Percy could feel muscles under his hands, could see the broad shoulders—but he whimpered.  He was distinctly misiscule, under the god’s command and losing. 

“I know.”  Percy fought to keep the other’s eyes.  “But you can’t do that.  it’s not right.” 

“Says who?”  He challenged, but the words fell flat.  He didn’t have the will to fight anymore. 

Percy saw Nico press farther forward, putting all of his upper body weight on the girl’s side. 

“You love her?”  Percy asked, feeling the corkscrews in his stomach at the idea of what he was doing, the road he was taking.  He was a manipulative bastard, but he couldn’t see this.  “Let her go.” 

Ryan froze, unseeing, uncomprehending—Percy could see the reflection of death and lost love in his blue eyes, and he hit the head of the last nail, carefully taking the leather bag of ambrosia away. 

“If you love her,” he repeated, commanded, licking salt away from his own mouth, “let her go.” 

Clarissa whimpered, once, right before her spirit fled for the underworld and Nico sat back on his haunches, shaking like a sapling caught in a breeze. 

Ryan screamed and the sound tore through Percy like a metal blade. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter was awful hard to churn out. I took a break to write ‘Bottles And Such’ (which admittedly was also fairly dark and angsty), but even after a break it was hard to write and look at. 
> 
> Tobi.


	21. Licorice.

Chapter Twenty: Licorice.

 

_Previously: Clarissa whimpered, once, right before her spirit fled for the underworld and Nico sat back on his haunches, shaking like a sapling caught in a breeze._

_Ryan screamed and the sound tore through Percy like a metal blade._

 

 

The walk back to camp was uncomfortable, to say the least. 

The biggest part was that Percy couldn’t walk on his own, so Nico had to help him walk while Ryan carried Clarissa’s body back to the main forum. 

There’d be a meeting, after the slaughter.  There was always a meeting after something like this. 

Percy wanted Nico to unhand him, to let him walk himself.  Nico had an arm around his ribs, holding his entire upper body from collapsing to the ground.  Percy felt the push of Nico’s chest against his own with every breath, and it hurt. 

Nico’s hands were still covered in Clarissa’s blood up to his elbows, and Percy didn’t want that anywhere near him.  He was no stranger to blood, but this seemed different, somehow.  It burnt like acid on his skin, and he knew it was all in his head, him being silly and reacting strangely to something that was entirely normal in his life. 

“I’m fine.”  The words slurred on his tongue as he tried to wriggle out of Nico’s reach.  He utterly failed, about to fall forward, swinging his arms.  Nico grabbed him by his bad shoulder— _ouch_ —and yanked him back. 

“You’re not.”  Nico insisted. 

“No, but…”  Percy tried to move away again unsuccessfully.  Nico’s arms were a steel trap around him, a cage, a prison.  “Let me go.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to touch me.”  Percy said.  He didn’t want to think about how Nico flinched away, like he’d been burnt, or how the guilt settled all the deeper into his stomach.  Percy would have to deal with that later, when the world stopped spinning and he could breathe again.

 

“We don’t yet know who is responsible for this brutal attack.”  Reyna’s voice rang clear over the heads of the legionnaires.  They stood in line, in clear-cut formations, but the way they lilted and stood with pain written on their faces made it clear this was no ordinary assembly.  Even then they weren’t dressed in their normal armor, and some of the braver members of the legion had broken the precise lines of men to stand near their loved ones. 

Off to the side stood the gurneys where the bodies of the fallen lay, broken and bent, empty shells like puppets whose strings had been cut.  Surrounding them were a couple handfuls of people, lost-looked, devastated.  Those ones looked more dead—empty and lifeless—than their fallen comrades. 

Percy knew how they felt. 

He and Nico stood near the back of the building.  One of the walls was broken near a window, chipped, like one of the monsters had hit it there where it was weak.  He could feel the draft on the back of his neck.  Percy was purposely not looking over at the dead people.  Or the crying people.  Or Reyna. 

He fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and let Reyna’s words and the images they painted wash over him. 

‘We shall face the disaster that has happened with all the bravery I know we posses’. 

Reyna assured them, and Percy saw the stupidity as it really was.  All of them—all the brave would die, would find themselves over there on those gurneys.  Only the cowards survive. 

‘We will stand strong as children of the gods, and fight the fight we were born to fight!’ she exalted, pumping a fist. 

‘ _Being the child of a god does not make you strong,’_ the voice in Percy’s head pointed out.  ‘ _and it’s not our fight.’_

Percy felt the heat of Reyna’s gaze pass over him, counteracting the cool breeze at his back. 

The hot and the cold kept arguing for territory across the scar tissue on his arm. 

 

After the meeting was adjourned and people went to go do whatever it was people did when they weren’t fighting for their lives, Nico steered Percy outside the steepled building into the cheerfully bright sunshine to stand next to Hazel. 

Hazel looked rough, her curly hair tangled with dirt and bramble-like things, whole strands sheared off short.  Percy’s gut curdled when he realized how close those blades would have had to come to her head in order to cut at those angles.  Frank was nowhere to be seen—probably providing the grunt work for repairs. 

Hazel stepped in close to Percy and he felt Nico’s hands tighten on his sides before disappearing.  Percy didn’t pull away from Nico, though—he left his one arm resting on Nico’s side, uncaring of what Hazel thought, ignoring at how his stomach clenched further when Nico slowly slid a hand as a knife between the two of them, undoing their touching parts until only the barest hint of a hand for support was left. 

“You should probably get him back to the temple.”  Hazel observed, running hands along Percy’s forehead and pulse points in motherly motions that Percy couldn’t bring himself to move away from. 

“I’m going to.”  Nico spoke over Percy like he wasn’t even there, which wasn’t that bad considering Percy wasn’t actually sure if his tongue would work correctly if he tried. 

After Hazel walked away, Nico slipped another arm around him and steered him towards the building.  All Percy had to focus on was putting one foot in front of the other and keeping somewhat balanced. 

As long as he pretended it didn’t hurt that Clarissa had died and he hadn’t, that Nico didn’t pull away in front of others, that it didn’t sting like acid when Nico touched him with blood on his hands…then, he was fine. 

“We’re here.”  Nico said softly. 

Hey.  So they were.  They were standing in front of the harsh, dark wooden door of the Pluto temple, flanked by upright columns that stood like sentries. 

Nico slammed the door open a touch harder than was probably necessary, but Percy wasn’t about to point that out when he was weak as a kitten. 

Nico tugged him into the building and down onto the blankets that still sat, crumpled and creased into a nest-like shape, on the floor.  Nico snatched his long-fingered hands back into his body, letting Percy fall back and hit his head, hard. 

“Ow.”  Percy complained. 

“Sorry.”  Nico sat Percy back up for a second, pulling his armor over his head and yanking his sneakers off his feet without unlacing them.  he lowered percy back down, a bit more gently this time, and stood, brushing off his pants and moving towards the door. 

“Wait!”  Percy froze, threw a hand up limply, trying to call Nico back in.  Nico couldn’t _leave_ , not while Percy was here and feeling like he should have died, because he should have, shouldn’t he?  “Where…?”

Words failed him, again.  Maybe he wanted to ask where Nico was going, or where it was that was so important, or something similar.  Some plea for Nico to stay that he could mask in a less-incriminating question. 

“Hush.”  Nico melted in the door, turned to look at Percy with a dying fire in his eyes.  “They need medics.  I’ll be back.” 

He turned and was gone from the door.

Percy watched the doorway for a while, until his eyes hurt from the drastic light-surrounded-by-dark shape.  Then, he turned his eyes back up and blinked so he could see the multicolored doorway shape flicker on the ceiling. 

He was so very tired. 

It was a very long time—at least two naps and a drowsy, half-asleep dream of warm water that soaked out tension and knots—before Nico stepped back into the building.  Years of night-time vigils had him to a point where any motion near him woke him up, so he blinked awake to see Nico.  He was pulling a chain-mail shirt over his head, trying to dull the noise by gripping it tight in pale hands with even paler knuckles, dragging the silver metal over dark hair and setting it off to the side where the silver gleamed like pooled water. 

Percy just laid there and watched him unlace his boots, taking in the sight of bruised arms and the edge of ribs that showed when he bent over. 

Nico glanced over at him and froze when he met Percy’s eyes. 

“You’re awake.” 

Percy hummed non-committedly.  Was he? 

“How are you feeling?”  Nico knelt on the floor and pressed a hand to Percy’s chest, feeling the rise and fall of his chest.  Without the blood on his hands, the touch didn’t burn like acid, just tingled. 

Percy knitted his brow.  He could have sworn Nico said something.  Did he ask a question?

Nico laughed, tucked a strand of hair behind Percy’s ear.  Whatever he asked must not have mattered that much, because Nico clambered in under the blankets with him just as the darkness started to encroach in on Percy’s mind again. 

The next time he woke, his head was much clearer. 

He’d somehow wrapped himself up around Nico, going so far as to weave their legs together, to tuck his face in Nico’s hair.  He always smelled soapy, and kind of spicy, like a candy Percy distantly remembered his mother smelling like some days after work. 

“You smell like licorice.”  Percy mused out loud.  It was so dark, entirely dark, so he was speaking out loud to ward off the panic that was rising in his chest like a wave.  He hoped Nico wasn’t awake.  Not that he could hold it off for much longer—after another two breaths, each deeper than the last, he shuffled his way out of Nico’s sleepy grip to get to the rock on the table. 

He tapped it twice and the blessed light filled the air, warding off the panic.  He stood, resting fingertips next to the rock.  After a moment, he groped further across the tabletop until he struck…there.  Nico’s pebble.  Two taps and a humming swelled, like a fan on a low setting, a white noise background. 

“Thanks.”  Nico spoke and Percy jumped, nearly knocking over the table. 

“Helios!”  Percy swore.  He shook his head and slowly lowered himself back down to the floor.  He could make out the silhouettes of the table and the walls, of the piled blankets and Nico, but he didn’t want to do something like sit on a sword or set on Nico’s hand.    He managed to snuggle back under the blankets without further injury, other than a little lightheaded. 

For a moment it was silent save for the humming. 

“Did you say…licorice?”  Nico sat up slightly, like it had just dawned on him what Percy had been rambling on.  He looked over at Percy and shifted away; it brought a gap between the two of them, one that sat there on the blankets and taunted Percy. 

“Yes.”  Percy yawned.  It was too early (or, too late) to have conversations.  His hand found its way to the valley of space between him and Nico.  “Come back?” 

“I don’t…”  Nico trailed off.  There was a charge in the air, a broken feel around Nico.  Percy wasn’t asking for much—he just wanted the space between them gone.  “You don’t want me there.”  Nico finished his sentence.  It took Percy an embarrassingly long time to make sense of that.

“Huh?” 

“You said…”  Nico shuffled around on his rear until he was more-or-less facing Percy.  “You said you didn’t want me to touch you.” 

“What?”  Percy tried to reach out a hand to the other, was painfully reminded that _that arm wasn’t there and didn’t like being moved_ , and tried again with his other one.  He landed a hand on Nico’s leg, the closest part of him.  The muscle under his palm tensed like Nico wanted to move away, but Percy dug in his fingers.  He’d hurt him, if that’s what it took to keep him there.  “I just meant then!  I didn’t mean ever!” 

“Oh.”  Nico said dumbly.  “I figured…”

“You figured wrong.”  Percy interrupted.  “I most certainly, very surely did not mean ever.” 

“Oh.”  Nico was silent before he shuffled a bit closer again.  “Well, that’s good.  I guess.” 

“Yes.”  

Nico sighed long-sufferingly and flopped back down on the sweatshirt/pillow right next to Percy. 

“Well, that was an awful lot of worrying over nothing.”

“Yes, it was.”  Percy agreed.  Stupid, stupid Nico.  Of course he didn’t mean ever—he only meant then, when Nico’s hands were red with blood and Percy’s would have been, too, if emotional suffering caused was as obvious as physical suffering. 

“Come here?”  Percy asked again, holding an arm out limply, an invitation.  He wanted to stop thinking about blood—his mother, his father, his failures, Oegathis, and _blood_ , all of it—and lay here with a handsome boy (man, if he was being honest, which he had no intention of being) while his body recuperated from being electrified. 

“By the way,” Percy knew he hadn’t said any of the above out loud, so it was only ‘by the way’ in his own brain; Nico would get it, anyway, “what are my recovery symptoms for electric shock?”

“Respiratory failures are the biggest concern.”  Nico curled up next to Percy, using his shoulder as a pillow.  “The main issue is that it disrupts the signals between the brain and the bodily functions.  You seem to be fine, though.”

“Are you sure?”

“Fairly.  More-or-less.”  Nico crinkled his nose. 

“Thank you, Dr. di Angelo.”  Percy grumbled sarcastically. 

“Would you like me to double check?”

Percy tried to say yes, but the words died a bit when Nico went ahead and checked anyway. 

One long-fingered hand trailed its way up his arm, under the collar of his shirt, until the palm rested against his sternum. 

“Heartbeat seems fine.”  Nico noted. 

“Uh.”  That was a brilliant response, considering where Percy’s mind was happily running at the moment. 

Nico slid the hand back out of Percy’s shirt, and Percy wished he could have hat skin-on-skin contact back. 

Nico moved to flick Percy’s face, but Percy swatted the hand away instinctively, thought following action.

“Reflexes fine.”  Nico mused. 

“You just tried to flick me.”  Percy accused.  “I’m pretty sure that’s not how most doctors do it!”

“I’m not most doctors.”  Nico pointed out, breath warm against Percy’s skin, and Nico moved his mouth closer, where Percy could feel his lips brushing his skin.  “Is this okay?”

“Yes.”  With any other person, those lips at his throat would have been a danger, a threat.  They still were a danger, with Nico—but it was a whole different kind of dangerous.  it was a wave right before the crash, the eye of the storm, a coastal shelf to an unmoored boat. 

It was dangerous, and Percy wanted to lick his way into Nico’s mouth just to see if there was electricity in there still, if Nico would make a soft noise like that one time he’d eaten a pomegranate, if Nico would let him wrap his hands up in his hair and hold on tight. 

He wanted the danger.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello readers! Sooo, smut of some kind next chapter. I’m still working out the specifics. 
> 
> On the other hand, my short work For The Love of The Ocean (Upon which my story ‘Bottles and such’ is based) is being edited and published. By short I mean short (about 7,000 words short), but hey. I’m pretty proud. 
> 
> Tobi.


	22. Hail, Lord of Horses.

_Previously: It was dangerous, and Percy wanted to lick his way into Nico’s mouth just to see if there was electricity in there still, if Nico would make a soft noise like that one time he’d eaten a pomegranate, if Nico would let him wrap his hands up in his hair and hold on tight._

_He wanted the danger._

 

Sitting there on the blankets, they kissed like that for a long, long time. Soft, chaste kisses morphed into harder, sloppier ones, and Percy discovered that there was electricity in Nico’s mouth, along with a metallic-y taste that wasn’t near as gross as it sounded, before moving back to the gentle ones.

Percy liked those, more than the deeper ones. He liked the bare brush on Nico’s lips against his own, a hint of teeth and a hit of breath, almost pure and innocent-feeling.

The longer he refused to think about it, the easier it became to ignore the burning along his spine and the tightness of his shorts. He didn’t want to move fast, to speed towards an inevitable finish line where he’d do something wrong, leave Nico in a gutter and break both their hearts in the process.

It was that realization—the new idea that surfaced, the recognition that when he left Nico it would hurt him as bad as anything he’d endured—that made him press one hand to the center of Nico’s chest and push.

Nico didn’t move immediately, pressing another kiss to the side of Percy’s mouth.

“Nico.” Percy growled warningly and Nico backed up, scooted back a little.

“What’s wrong?” While Nico had stopped outright touching Percy, stroking soft jeans and hair, he didn’t pull away where they were left—legs tangled and fingers woven.

“I’m just…” Percy licked his lips, chasing the last of that metallic-y taste, like a tin can or cold steel, while he tried to put the clenching feeling into words. His vocabulary had never been that high, and he’d doubted the breadth of emotion he felt was covered in any language.

Maybe Greek. The Greeks had a lot of words for feelings, like they spent a lot of time bowed over scrolls and doing a personal inventory of emotion.

_‘What’s a word for disliking someone fundamentally, but not wanting them to go anywhere, and hoping they both hate and like you as well?’_

If those Greek scholars had come up with one, it hadn’t been hardwired to Percy’s mind. Like the gods would have given him anything helpful like that.

“I’m confused.” Percy settled on what he was feeling about trying to come up with what he was feeling, rather than the feeling itself. He needed more sleep and less injuries.

“What else is new?” Nico quipped, flopping back in a long-limbed pile onto the blankets, body perpendicular to Percy’s; intersecting lines, never to meet again.

Percy laughed. “Aren’t you?”

“No.” Nico said, seriously. Percy scanned his face. For all the world-weariness resting in the lack of smile, the dark circles beneath eyes, there was no worry lines, no wrinkles indicating tangled thoughts.

“Wow.” Percy said, half to himself. How could someone bear what Nico had, what _Percy had done_ to him, and not be confused after making out with them?

“I'm not like you.”

Percy flopped back, wincing when his head hit the floor and not his pillow, so he couldn’t see Nico’s face when he spoke. Not to say that he would have been able to read anything there, anyway. Dude had a poker face.

“You keep saying that,” Percy recalled the times Nico had said those words or something like them, inflected with a deeper meaning that Percy could glean, “but I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean,” Nico untangled their hands, letting Percy’s fall to the ground, so he could doodle absently on the ground as he spoke, “that I had time to think, to ‘soul search’ or whatever they call it, before. I’ve already seen my darkest sides and how I handle them, and I know my fatal flaw and I know it’s going to kill me one day, and I know that you are an utter bastard but I don’t care, because I like this.”

At that, he gestured around the air above them with one hand, indicating the two of them, lying on piled blankets in the Temple of Pluto in Camp Jupiter, bloody and broken.

“You’re masochistic.” Percy decided. How could anybody, anyone, like seeing this?

“No,” There was a cruel edge, a touch of that dark he had spoken of, in his words, “I’m sadistic. A big part of why I’m here is because I like seeing you struggle like this.”

_That was so wrong,_ Percy decided, _that he had nothing to say, no arguments to offer._

If he was going to be completely honest—which he wasn’t—he would say that he liked it, too.

 

At some point, Percy fell back into a bodily-stress induced doze. He dreamt of ships blowing up and friends he lost to noble sacrifices.

When he woke up, it was still dark, but beginning to get a bit hazy at the edges of the window. Nico was gone, along with both his swords. There was nothing but a pillow cast aside and a rumpled blanket.

“Figures.” Percy mumbled.

Since Nico was gone, Percy didn’t have to sneak in order to tap out a couple of the pain pills from his backpack.

His arm didn’t hurt, per se, but his head was still fuzzy and he was acutely aware of how _missing_ his arm was. After he downed a couple of the long, egg-shaped pills the fuzziness started to retreat and the missing felt less acute.

That done, he ducked out of the building and squinted while his eyes adjusted to the outside, dim light. The sun was barely beginning to crest and cast long shadows from the nearby temples. Percy had one, specific temple he wanted to visit. Alone.

The door on the Neptune temple creaked as he pushed it open, yet another sign of how disliked this temple—and its god—was.

The place was clean, but somehow stale, like it was left alone whenever Percy left. Which was likely, actually.

Percy got out a couple candles and struggled for a moment to light them, unable to get a hold both the match and the box for striking. Eventually, he held the matchbox in his mouth and struck the match as quick as possible and lit the candles.

Shaking out the match (and the burn forming on his fingers from where it burned too low), he set the candles on the altar and stepped back as far as he could without hitting the wall behind him. He wished this place was bigger, a larger building, so he could at least have more space between him and the altar.

“Uh,” he started, coughed into his hand, and stared at the fire for a moment. He had so much to say, but was not willing to speak them yet.

“Hey, um, father.” Percy finally found a starter. “I know it’s been a while, but I hope you’re listening, anyway, whatever you said last time. See, I’m looking for Oegathis…” Percy trailed off.

What was he even doing here? After what he’d been told—after what he’d said back—he had no business telling his father anything. Poseidon had made it very, very clear that Percy had one purpose in the world: a tool of the gods.

Whatever. The gods owed him this much, at least.

“I need to find him. Please, father, just give me this. Don’t let the others interfere—for any pride you once had in me, or any affection, or anything.”

There wasn’t much left to say here. Percy’d asked, and he’d have to see if his dad ever cared that much, or if Percy truly had been nothing but a pawn.

Percy licked his already red fingers (not hurting yet, thanks to pain meds already in his system) and pinched the life out of one of the flames on the candle.

A sudden gust of wind—salt-tinged, ocean-scented wind—swept past the other, blowing it out.

Percy stood in the dark for a second before shuffling out the door.

 

“So,” Percy strolled into the horse pavilion, treading around the droppings of a dozen cavalry steeds, marching straight up to the legionnaires playing at stable-hands for the day’s duties, “what can anyone tell me about Oegathis?”

That was the trick, Percy had learned, to finding out what you want to know. You act like you’re in charge—which a lot of the time, Percy used to be—and act like you don’t desperately need what you’re asking about. People will tell you a lot more.

The handful of legionnares eyed him carefully, two of them turning back to the horses they were grooming. The other three remained focused on Percy, if their hands were still busy grooming or saddling horses.

“Who wants to know?” one of them—a young, pretty girl who seemed very aware of how pretty she was—asked.

“Me.” Percy didn’t bother with the pretense—if they knew who Oegathis was (which wasn’t very likely), then they would know exactly who would be seeking him out.  “Why, do you know something?”

“It’s possible.” She shrugged, turned toward him playfully. The other two, a couple of other girls, smiled slightly with straight teeth and turned back to their horses. One of the girl’s horses, an older gelding with a lovely golden sheen, wouldn’t stop trying to shy away from her. Percy reached out with his hand, touched its muzzle and asked it to hold still for him. It did.

The girl smiled, finished slipping the girth strap into place. Her friend—the one who may, possibly know something—smiled wider at Percy and looked at him through her lashes.

Girls, Percy had also learned, think better on a guy who likes animals and is nice to her friends. If being better in her opinion would help him find some info, he’d saddle the horses himself with his feet.

“I may have heard something,” the girl said slowly.

“What’s that?” Percy tried to keep from sounding too eager, and must have pulled it off.

“It’s not very reliable information.” She admitted.

“That’s fine. Anything can help.” Percy brightened up—no information was reliable, and he’d gotten some of his best knowledge from irreputable sources.

“I heard a guy from the 3rd Legion talking about hearing of a guy named Oggthis in Washington. I know the name’s not the same…”

“Close enough.” Percy interrupted her. Greek names were impossible to guess from pronunciation alone, and easy to slaughter. It was worth looking into.  “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” She smiled coyly, and Percy felt a flush run up from behind his ears. _Speedy retreat, Percy, speedy retreat._

“Thanks.” He said again quickly, before patting the horse again and ducking out of the stables.

Washington. It was a starting place, at least.

 

Percy asked around at the training area, various temples, and inside New Rome itself. No other legionnaires knew anything, or were willing to admit to knowing anything, but there were a couple New Romans who knew some things.

Two of them—a young couple with a small child who darted around their feet and made Percy’s chest hurt—who repeated something about a man up north named Oggthis.

Another one said the right name, Oegathis, and said he could be found near a burial of unclaimed bones. This man—an older gentlemen who still kept a sword strapped to his side, despite barely being able to hold a coffee cup without spilling—told Percy not to go searching.

“It’s not worth it, son.” He insisted, like he knew the price Percy would have to pay already. Percy decided to ignore him under the rational that age does not always breed wisdom.

He was in this already.

 

After that, it was still only around lunch time. Percy went to the meal area and got the standard fare. He swirled his straw around in his blue coke for a few seconds while he figured out where to sit.

There was a spot on one of the benches he snapped up, entering a conversation between a few older legion members about the benefits of swords against knives, and whether shields were really worth the extra weight, for carrying around that often.

“Here,” Percy said after one of them argued that shields should be made smaller, “like this?”

He pulled out his wallet and sifted through the pictures in it, until he found one of him and Tyson, and pointed to the watch on his arm.

“See that? It’s a watch, but it spirals out to a shield.”

The others looked down at the picture, impressed. “Where’d you get something like that?” One of them asked.

“My brother.” Percy tapped the picture fondly. “He’s a Cyclops.”

The camera didn’t see through the Mist apparently, because Tyson’s face was rather fuzzy and he just found his eyes sliding off of it when he looked at the picture. The others, if possible, looked even more impressed.

“Really?” One of them, from the first legion, asked. “And are you…okay, with that?”

“Proud.” Percy said, looking at the picture of him with his arm around his brother.

“Oh.”

“Do you still have the watch? How long ago was this taken?” The man who asked tapped the picture.

“No, I lost it in a fight against Kampé in Daedalus’ Labyrinth.” Percy muttered, missing the way the man’s eyes widened, “and that picture was taken, like, a year ago.”

“You fought in Daedalus’ Labyrinth.” One repeated dumbly.

Another clapped Percy on the back, jovially. “You got a lot of stories under your belt, don’tcha?”

“Yeah, I guess I do.” Percy thought about all the stories he’d accumulated, back over the years. There were a lot of them.

“This was only a year ago?” The other man said, tapping the picture, incredulous.

“Yep.” Percy slid it off the table and back into his wallet, back into his pocket.

“Man,” the one who had first asked shook his head, standing up to get more food, “you bounce back quick, don’t you?”

‘ _Do I?_ ’ Percy wondered in his head. It didn’t feel quick at all.

After Percy’s second plate, Nico walked into the dining area with an arm around Hazel and another girl, with short brown hair and bright blue eyes, each tucked in against him. Percy’s stomach clenched suddenly and he waved the rest of his food away, less hungry than he had thought he was.

Nico kept brushing him off in front of people, and now he had an arm around another girl, laughing loudly at a joke, still as shadowy and dark as ever, and Percy was most certainly not jealous.

All the same, he was bored and could certainly use a chance for some more training with his sword, more time to get used to the armor that still caught him by surprise sometimes, more time to hack at something and fix the muscles that kept wanting to betray him when he needed them.

In the training area, he set up some of the very handy enchanted targets that healed themselves back together, plastic fusing, after a certain amount of time. It was nice, therapeutic, to slice the heads and the limbs off people that wouldn’t look at him with terrified eyes, with blood that would spill on the ground and stay there.

After he’d entirely disembodied three of them he propped them back in their rough shape and watched them start to knit back together at their broken parts.

If only it was that easy, in real life.

“Hey, Percy.” A legionnaire—Derek—hailed Percy over. Derek was tall and lanky and had one eye slightly higher than the other, making anyone who looked him in the eye feel as though they were tipping sideways. It would be quite handy in a fight, which Derek could use, as the man didn’t have much by way of innate fighting skill. “Go a round with me?”

Percy tested his sword, swiped away the sweat starting to bead on his forehead.

“Sure, Derek.”

Even with Percy tired and sore, the numbness of the pain pill wearing off, he beat Derek after a couple of minutes. Derek fought good, even managed a swipe off that cut through the skin of Percy’s thigh, making them both wince.

“Good fight.” Percy acknowledged as he hopped out of the fighting area. He dabbed a towel onto his leg after Derek had walked away.

He drank a bottle of water to rehydrate as he watched the next couple fights, leaning against a bannister. He wanted another couple pills, but didn’t feel like he should take any just yet. He was getting a bit low.

After one fight—barely a fight at all, a scramble for a mouse to get away from a tiger—Percy spoke up from the sidelines.

“Next fight.” Percy requested, nodding at the victor, and Nico nodded back after a moment.

Percy walked forward and drew Riptide out. Nico swung his swords effortlessly, but Percy could see the slight catch on his left wrist, the way he was favoring his side (likely sore from another night on the ground).

They started to circle, dancing a path around the edges of the designated area. Why had Percy wanted to fight Nico, again? He wasn’t really sure, other than the fact that he now had Nico’s attention and he was happier now.

“I saw you leave the dining area.” Nico’s tone was casual, conversational, but he kept his voice low, like he didn’t want the few people working around them to hear. Percy tried a slash at his side, but Nico batted it away.

“Did you?” Percy asked as he parried one of Nico’s strikes. Percy hadn’t thought Nico had noticed him there, off to the side. He had seemed preoccupied.

“Why’d you leave?” Nico’s tone wasn’t merely curious, this time—it was interrogative.

“I was finished.” Percy danced away from Nico’s double-sword swing at his arm, and countered with a thrust at Nico’s stomach, forcing him back on his heels. Nico raised his eyes.

“You know what I think?” Nico stepped forward, regaining ground, and swung at Percy’s side, forcing him to roll forward and past.

“Never.” Percy responded without thinking. “But I bet you’re going to tell me.”

“I think,” Nico continued like he hadn’t heard Percy, as the two of them exchanged blows, steel shrieking, “that you were jealous because you saw me with Emma.”

Percy wiped his forehead on his sleeve, easily dodging Nico’s thrust. “Not likely. But,” he emphasized the ‘but’ with a spinning thrust at Nico’s side as he slid past him, “it wouldn’t be entirely unprecedented, would it?”

“Yes,” Nico and Percy’s swords locked against the hilt, cross-body, blocking Nico’s other sword. Percy suddenly found he was standing very close, much closer than he’d intended to get. “It would be.”

Percy didn’t even bother responding to that. He was getting a little out of breath, anyway—the two of them had danced their way across every inch of the fighting area, and the wear was showing on Nico, too.

“Emma is not my type.” Nico insisted, swiping at his own forehead and wincing.

“What is your type, then?” Percy lowered his sword, and like a set of magnets, Nico’s dropped too.

“You.” Nico said lowly. He looked around them carefully.

“Don’t say it too loud.” Percy responded sarcastically. He knew—knew—he was being petty and clingy like he’d never, ever been before, and he knew it was because he was scared of why Nico didn’t want others to know about him, but couldn’t bring himself to stop caring.

He’d always had terrible impulse control, anyway.

“I forfeit.” Percy said cheerily, ducking out of the ring and away from Nico’s needy calls of ‘ _Percy!_ ’ behind him.

 

Nico stood in the doorway of the now-empty stables. Most of the other people were out at the war games; Percy could hear them from here, the yelling and clanging.

“I’m sorry.” Percy offered first, and Nico shook his head.

“No, I am.” Nico stepped inside, careful to stay away from the horses that shifted nervously in his presence. “I should have told you that there was nothing between me and Emma, instead of taunting you with it.”

“Yeah, you should have.” Percy said with a dry smile. “But I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”

“You at least had a reason. I just wanted to rile you up.” Nico’s smile, crooked and cruel-tinged, was so very precious, it was almost worth his admission.

“You do seem to like doing that.” Percy observed. “But, really, I understand the Emma bit.”

“You don’t understand why I’ve been avoiding telling anyone else about,” Nico gestured between them, past the horse’s nose, “this.”

“Well, yeah.” It sounded stupid when put like that, like less of a valid concern.

“Firstly, I don’t honestly know what to call this.” Nico held out a hand and snatched it back when the horse snapped at him. “Secondly, I don’t need anyone to know about this; it’s too much pressure. Lastly…Hazel would be worried.”

_One at a time_ , the voice in Percy’s head reasoned.

“Okay, um, firstly—boyfriends?”

Both of them shook their heads at the same time. Percy didn’t know Nico’s rationale, but didn’t need it, as long as the rest of the denial problem was solved. ‘Boyfriends’ was childlike, immature, and shallow-feeling for the depth there.

It was also clearly a relationship, which was more than Percy wanted.

“Okay, so for the second…I get it. The pressure of liking such a hot piece of ass must be overwhelming.” Percy said ironically.

Nico snorted but inclined his head.

“So, you don’t want the whole ‘relationship’ pressure, either.” Percy said, and Nico nodded more forcefully this time. Good.

“Lastly, uh, Hazel?” That one Percy could see as being more valid. Hazel had seen him at his worst, his most terrified and desperate, and if he was her he would try everything in his power to steer Nico clear, too. “I see her point, but isn’t that a little over-protective of her? I mean, you’re older than her.” He pointed out.

“Oh,” Nico looked surprised. “I’m not the one she’s protecting.”

The words “ _Then who?_ ” were on the tip of Percy's tongue, but he swallowed them down to a safer place than out in the air. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Next update will be up sooner. Sorry these have been so few and far between—finals at college.   
> On the other, more optimistic side, we are making progress through the story! Thanks for reading!   
> Tobi.


	23. Last Song Gone

Chapter 24—The Last Song Gone.

_Previously: “Oh,” Nico looked surprised. “I’m not the one she’s protecting.”_

_The words “Then who?” were on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them down to a safer place than out in the air._

 

Percy couldn’t think of anything to say after that, Nico had so completely killed the conversation. Nico didn’t even look bothered, stripping out of his jeans and changing his shirt, shoving backpacks away before laying on top of the covers. He ran warmer than most people, probably because of all the time in the chilly underworld, so he slept on top of covers a lot.

Percy snuggled down under the covers himself, making a cozy cocoon of scratchy woolen blankets, and drifted off like a boat from the shore.

 

“Percy.” Nico’s voice drifted through the haze of sleep. “Percy!”

Percy bolted upright, heart racing, lungs heaving, blinking away tears and a sheen of cold sweat, fighting back a wave of nausea and _oh god_ what was wrong why couldn’t he breath and _stop, stop, stop touching him_ …

“Hey!” Nico protested, catching Percy’s hand before Percy could rake it down his face. “Cool it!”

“Nico.” Percy gasped and went limp, falling back a bit until he managed to coordinate his arm back behind him to brace himself a bit up off the floor. “Oh, gods.”

“No,” Nico seemed to relax now that Percy wasn’t slashing at him, but Percy couldn’t really see because of how dark it was. “It’s just me.”

The laughter came from somewhere down in Percy’s stomach, bubbling up like a fountain, and the smile seemed to radiate off of Nico.

“Sorry.” Percy patted Nico’s head and ignored his growl of protest. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Percy went to lower himself back to the bed and go to bed, but he caught Nico’s words as he went back to sleep too.

“Anytime, Percy.”

 

Percy woke to a dull throb in his chest, constricting. It was like someone had wrapped an ace bandage around his ribcage and tightened it.

“Oof.” He huffed out a breath and sucked in another, then another. After a few minutes of doing absolutely nothing but lying down on floor and breathing heavily, the constricting feeling loosened.

“What the heck…” Percy started to ask no one out loud, but then ducked his head when he saw Nico sleeping.

He took a second to observe Nico in the least-creepy manner he could manage. Even if he was being not-creepy, it felt awkward and he hoped Nico wouldn’t wake up in the next couple seconds, but he didn’t want to stop staring anyway.

Nico curled up in his sleep—he had every time Percy had seen him—like a cat, with a hand resting curled on his knees and the other under his head. His face—normally so shadowed and moody looking—slacked out, restful and calm.

Percy bet, while he may look tranquil, he was clutching a bone knife under his head.

Percy slipped up and out of the makeshift bed as quietly as he could, leaving the blankets piled. Once up he slipped a shirt over his own head and followed it with his armor, he ducked out of the building and stretched.

Something wasn’t right.

That was yet another night he’d forgotten what he’d dreamt about. Whatever he saw at night, it was wiped from his memory, and all he knew was that the dreams made him feel sick, and violent. For someone who had the nightmare equivalent of an APB out on him, he should have be terrified, suffering every night.

He wasn’t. These dreams were no worse than the ones he’d been having before Thalia’s deal with Phobos.

Speaking of Thalia, an Iris-Message was Percy’s first order of business. Percy walked to the river, taking the back alleyways to avoid running into anyone. If he saw people, he’d want to stop to talk to people, and he didn’t really have the time for that now.

At the river, Percy fished a golden drachma out of his pocket and tossed it into a spray he kicked up.

“Goddess, accept my offering,” he intoned, naming Thalia Grace at wherever-the-hell-she-now-was as a destination.

What he got was a vision from a herd of women, armed to the teeth and interspersed with a dozen pale-colored wolves.

Wolves. What he wouldn’t give to get out of the wolf mindset that leeched into people like a sponge around here.

Thalia stood on top of a rock, giving orders to the crowd of girls.

“Janice, the southern border of the woods. Keep an eye out for anything moving, but don’t shoot until I tell you to.”

Percy found it both endearing and painful the way Thalia spoke with unfocused eyes, mentally mapping out every landmark and person, making certain that no person would be trapped in the line of fire. Learned habits instilled by past horrors die hard, he guessed.

“Someone’s go to guard the northern edge. Clara, you get on that.” Percy vividly remembered Clara; she was one of the oldest hunters in appearance, looking like she was somewhere in her early twenties, with dark hair and eyes and a sweet, childlike face. Like most of the hunters, she had no great love of men or demigods, and the two together didn’t mix well in her company.

Regardless, she pointed to the hovering shape of Percy and said, “M’lady, that one’s here to speak with you.”

‘That one’. Ouch.

Percy waved like a loser when Thalia spotted him, her eyes widening and mouth falling open for a second before she snapped it shut.

“Percy.” She practically hissed it out between gritted teeth, and Clara gave Percy a pitying look before heading towards what was probably the northern border.

It occurred to him that it was a very good thing that Thalia couldn’t actually touch him, as she was looking at him with such intensity that it looked like she wanted to wrap her hands around his throat and squeeze.

“Hi, Thalia.” Thalia stalked up towards him in the iris-message, until he could have reached out and touched her if she’d been more than an image.

“Hi?” She repeated disbelievingly. “Hi?!”

“Er, sorry…?” Percy tried. First fallback option for girls being mad at him—apologize.

“Sorry?!” She practically shrieked. For a second it looked like she was going to throw herself out of the image and strangle him anyway, physics be damned. “That’s all I get?”

“Well,” Percy began, but Thalia slashed her hand across the screen.

“No! You shut the hell up! You vanished on me, left me with that creepy-ass butler, and after that first call I tried to call you up but couldn’t get a fix on where you were other than at ‘a friend’s’ and Nico vanished from the hospital room and I had _no_ idea where he had gone other than at it was probably with you, but neither of you were going to take care of yourselves and I knew that, and the least you could have done was sent me a gods-damned note but _no_ , Percy Fucking Jackson only needs to drop a quick call to check on his ‘friend’, he’s too important to track me down and let me know you were okay, or, you know, you could have _called_ , or sent a message by carrier pigeon, I don’t know, just let me know you weren’t _dying_ or _dead_ so I didn’t have to hear about it from Clarisse of all people!”

It appeared she was done with her rant, or maybe just out of breath, because she stopped and put her hands on her hips, breathing through flared nostrils.

“Um, sorry.” Percy repeated. “I should have called before now. Yes, Nico’s with me, and we’re both, well” Percy briefly considered saying fine but figured Thalia would smell a lie even over a hundred thousand miles, “okay. Alive.”

“I see that.” She responded sarcastically. Someone out of the screen called for Thalia. “I’ve got to go. Just, call, okay? Don’t leave me here without knowing anything.”

“Right.” Percy repeated dumbly, knowing that he should, and he’d have to put a lot more effort into that. Thalia deserved to know where every person she inexplicably cared for was at any given time, because he’d put her through a lot more stress than she really deserved.

The screen blinked away and he let the sheen of water droplets fall back into the river, the rainbow vanishing away.

“Neat trick.” A voice behind him said, and Percy wheeled around and took a step back into the river.

“Dad.” He said, stunned, before stepping out of the river again and shaking his foot off as subtly as he could. “Father.”

“Percy.” His father looked exactly like Percy remembered him usually looking—flowered shirt and Bermuda shorts and sandals, salt-and-pepper hair windswept and elegantly casual. Percy briefly considered dropping to a kneel, but scrapped the idea.

“What are you doing here?” There was no reason, not a single one, for Poseidon to be here in Camp Jupiter.

“I wanted to see you.” Poseidon said automatically, making Percy snort.

“Cut the crap, dad. What do you want?”

“Isn’t a dad allowed to see his son? Especially a son who’s recently been through some traumatic incidents?” His sea green eyes—so alike Percy’s own—hovered over Percy’s amputation spot.

“No.” Percy responded just as quick. “Not a father like you.”

Poseidon flinched like Percy had hit him, but he wouldn’t let himself feel guilty for that one twitch after all these gods had done to him.

“Look, I’m fine.” Percy held out his arm and gestured around him. “See? I mean, missing an arm, and still having nightmares and trouble but I bet you already knew that.”

“Yes,” Poseidon said hesitantly after Percy’s expectant look.

“Good.” Percy made a shooing gesture. “Nice to see you. Love you, bye, father.”

Poseidon looked slightly angry, like he’d thought he’d show up and act all out of character and expect Percy to go along with it, like nothing had been broken between them.

“Goodbye, Perseus.” He took a couple steps back and before vanishing he added, “take care, son.”

“Gods are dicks.” Percy mumbled to the air around him.

“You can say that again.” A girl’s voice behind him agreed, and Percy wheeled around to see that Emma girl, the one Nico had been all chummy-chummy with before.

“Uh, how long have you been standing there?” he asked.

“Since you were talking to Thalia.” Emma jogged down past the huge rocks toward the river and sat on one of the rocks.

“Do you always listen in on other people’s calls?” Percy tried very hard not to let his frustration with everything else color his voice but, honestly, he didn’t think he succeeded very well.

“Only when they involve people I care about.” She responded. She dug a cigarette out of a pack from her pocket and offered him one, which he declined.

“It’s none of Nico’s business.” Percy tentatively sat next to her for lack of anything better to do. Or that’s what he told himself.

“First, if you believe that, you’re more stupid than you look.” She blew out a puff of smoke and Percy’s nose wrinkled.

“Secondly,” she continued, “I wasn’t actually talking about Nico.”

“You don’t care about me.” Percy knew that she didn’t, so who the heck was she talking about?

“Not really.” She took another drag off her cigarette, still not looking at him, face turned away and over the water. Up this close, she wasn’t as pretty as he had first thought she was—her nose was too big and her mouth to thin—but she still seemed striking, somehow. “I care about what you stand for.”

“That makes no sense.” Percy decided out loud. He was Percy. He didn’t stand for anything anymore.

“But it wasn’t you I was talking about, either. What’s up with you and your dad?” She switched tracks so fast Percy almost—almost—forgot what she’d said at first, and wondered who else this girl would care about.

“Um,” he filed away his other questions to ask later, “we had an argument, a while back.”

“Over what?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Why _shouldn’t_ you?”

Percy couldn’t come up with a reasonable response to that, so he said, “After the last war, we had a falling out. I said it was the god’s faults there were so many deaths, and he said that was why there were demigods.”

“Jesus.” She said shakily.

“Yeah, but the sad thing was, he didn’t even realize, you know? He expected me to be grateful that I survived, like all the others I lost weren’t very important to him. I think, it’s like, he just forgot that kids that aren’t his matter so much, like after thousands of years of demigods he sometimes forgets that we’re all special and precious and all that shit.”

“That’s what gods do.” She muttered softly.

“Who’s your parent?” Percy asked after a moment of nothing but her smoking and him rubbing a foot back and forth on the ground.

“Mercury.” Percy had to think for a moment to place that as the Roman name for Hermes.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, we can’t all be big and powerful.” She leaned over and bumped Percy’s good shoulder, like they were already all chummy, and Percy didn’t mind all that much.

“You don’t want to be, believe me.” Percy didn’t know where that came from, other than the place that she seemed to be poking at.

“I bet.” She said offered Percy a drag off her cigarette, like nicotine would be the answer to all his problems. He waved it away.

“Your turn. The real reason you listened in on my perfectly normal iris-message?”

“Someone I care about became a Hunter.” She ground out the nearly-burnt down cigarette on the rocks and tucked the butt back into her pocket.

“Who?”

“Her name was Jenny.”

Before Percy could ask who jenny was or how she mattered to Emma, she walked away, waving a hand over her shoulder and leaving Percy feeling slightly-less bogged down.

“Oh, before I go,” Emma turned around but kept walking backwards while she spoke, “Trish said you were asking about Oegathis. Check out Pine Grove, Washington!”

Then she was gone and Percy finally, finally, had a destination. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Next chapter: a road trip, a graveyard of startling importance, and an emotionally resonant boat.   
> Thanks for reading, loves!   
> Tobi.


	24. The Lovely Die Young.

Chapter 24—The Lovely Die Young.

 

_Previously: “Trish said you were asking about Oegathis.  Check out Pine Grove, Washington!”_

_Then she was gone and Percy finally, finally, had a destination._

 

 

“Nico!”  Percy tossed open the door to the Pluto temple and stood in the doorway, sticking his hand out to keep the door from swinging back and hitting him in the face. 

“Wha—” Nico sat up groggily on the floor, pushing blankets back down around his legs, exactly where Percy had figured he’d be.  He had the usual dark circles under his eyes but they looked smaller and lighter, like a candle had been lit in the corner of his shadows.  He dragged his hands up and rubbed at his eyes, looking annoyed and mutinous.  “I only just got in.”  He mumbled. 

“I know.”  Percy ignored the despairing look Nico shot him.  “But you can sleep on the bus.” 

“A bus?”  Nico stood up at once, stretching out his spine towards the ceiling with a sound like a wounded animal. 

“Yep.”  Percy helped him gather up his stuff, eager to get up and going now that they finally had a place to be. 

He briefly tossed around the idea that Emma may not actually be reliable as a source, but then scrapped it.  There was something about the way she listened and offered so little that normally would have made him uncomfortable, like he’d opened himself to someone that refused to do the same, a raw wound, but instead she felt like a stable wall.  She was someone who he’d never hurt, who’d never hurt him, and he felt like he could trust the information she offered him. 

“Are you coming?”  Percy said it to try to rush Nico along, but after the words crossed his lips he froze.  What if Nico didn’t want to come?  Nico had been busy, here, helping people, and if Reyna could use him for strategy then surely Nico would want to be here, doing what he did best, even if Percy had been thinking—hoping—that he’d stay with Percy for a bit. 

The backpack hit him full on the side, making him grunt and grab to keep it from falling.  Nico rolled his eyes.  “Of course I’m coming.” 

“You don’t have to.”  Percy pointed out, even as he shouldered the backpack over his own and hovered in the doorway, watching Nico lace his boots up. 

“Yes, I do.”  Nico said with a brittle laugh, and shook his head.  That didn’t make a lot of sense to Percy, but he had a destination to head towards so everything else would work itself out around the edges, like always. 

They grabbed a couple of apples and waffles at the dining area and made a break for the edges of camp. 

“Do you think…?” It suddenly occurred to Percy as they were headed back down the road, passing dozens of legionnaires, that maybe there was something he should do first, “Reyna.  We should say goodbye to Reyna.” 

Nico shrugged but followed Percy, who’d already settled his mind, when he turned left towards where Reyna would likely be. The gravel crunched under his feet on the way to the building, as if asking him why he wasn’t already headed to Washington, but he reminded himself and the gravel that he needed to at least pop in and say a perfunctory goodbye.

“Reyna?” Percy prompted the guards on either side of the solid door.  They made aborted motions towards their weapons but stopped when they saw Percy’s arm and Nico behind him, in the shadows.

One of them stood up and moved towards the door, motioning for her partner to watch the two, making sure they didn’t do anything like stab her in the back.  As if.  If there intention was to assassinate the leader, Percy could think of a handful of ways to do so that would work a lot better than walking straight up to the door and fighting inside. 

“Reyna?”  The girl tapped the door and paused for a response, but Percy just snorted and walked forward, ducking past the other guard’s flimsy attempt at stopping him with the spear and past the lady guard’s squak of indignation.  Amatuers. 

“Reyna.”  Percy rapped the door once with his knuckles before turning the handle and swinging it open.  “Coming in!” 

“I see that.”  Reyna said dryly when he was inside the room.  She was standing on the opposite side, arms crossed, standing behind her desk like she was using it as her throne.  Or a shield.  Before her, between her and percy, was a dark head of hair and a sweatshirt that Percy knew. 

“Emma?”  Percy asked as the girl herself turned around. 

“Percy.”  She greeted him, slipping past him to the door.  “And Nico.”

Nico ducked in the room as she reached the doorway, closely tailed by the female guard and her companion. 

“Sorry, ma’am, I couldn’t stop them.”  The girl said quickly, waving her hands toward them, particularly Percy, as Nico had started to fade into the background of the room in the way he specialized at. 

“It’s alright, Bethany.”  Reyna waved dismissively.  “Please escort Ms. Ola out.” 

The guard took Emma by the arm and loosely led her out of the room.  Nico melted back out of the shadows once the door had swung shut with a clang, but only some. 

“Would you tell me why you have found it prudent to interrupt me in the midst of a meeting?”  Reyna said in a clipped tone. 

“I thought I’d stop in and say goodbye.”  Percy answered.  He raised his hand and waved it wildly. “Goodbye.” 

“Wait, what?”  Reyna straightened up from where she was starting to slouch into a relaxed posture. 

“Leaving.”  Percy repeated, summarizing.  “Goodbye.”

“Wait.”  Reyna reached out an arm even though she was a room-span away from Percy—it hovered like a entreat, a command for him to stay put for a second and listen.

Percy stood still for a minute and waited.

“What’s the rush?”  Reyna flickered her eyes from Percy to Nico to Percy’s arm, like at some point that had become a presence in its own right.

Percy thought about not telling her he had found a possible location for Oegathis.  Then, he reasoned, there was no reason to keep it from her, as it wasn’t her business anyway.

“I got a tip.”  Percy left the source anonymous, as both Reyna and Emma seemed pretty stressed anyway.  “About where Oegathis is.”

The room was dead silent for so long Percy started to make out the sounds from outside the room, of the people who thrived on the ground outside the office, even of the out-of-sync breathing of the people in the room.

“You’re kidding me.”  Reyna spoke flatly.  She leaned forward over the desk, slamming both of her toned arms down on the desk between them like testing a barrier. 

“No, I’m not kidding.”  Percy knew what Reyna, what his father, what everyone thought of this plan, and they weren’t going to dissuade him by treating him like a child.  Or a joke. 

Reyna turned to focus behind Percy, at Nico.  She gave him a disbelieving look, like she thought he would have better control over Percy, like she foolishly thought Nico had control of that kind over Percy at all. 

“You are going with him.”  She said, with an air of further disbelief. 

“Yes.” 

“I’m going to advise you not to do that.”  Reyna said, all diplomacy and carefully modulated words. 

Percy refused to turn around to look at Nico, refused to give either of them that satisfaction, but he heard the rebellious smirk all the same when Nico spoke.  “I’m going to ignore your advice.”

Reyna flushed.  “So neither of you are going to listen to what I have to say?” 

She was angry, Percy realized.  Angry because she’d lost control of him, of Nico, and he was so sick of people trying to control him like a pawn, like a pawn on a chessboard with dispensable pieces. 

“No.”  He said shortly.  “Bye, Reyna.” 

He made it two steps before he heard the tell-tale thunk of someone hopping the desk and he spun around, casting off her hand before she could get a grip on his upper arm, but he was working off instinct at this point and instinct said to use his other, now nonexistent arm, and she spun him straight into the wall behind them.  The flat wood dug into his shoulder blades as they rotated uselessly.  She put her forearm across his throat and held his arm fast to the wall with here other.  Two arms, always the advantage. 

“This is madness.”  Reyna hissed past clenched teeth.  A couple streaks of her hair had fallen down around her face, framing the sharp edges, wisps that showed just how undone she had been becoming lately.  “What will you sell—what will you bargain, throw away, for this?”

“I don’t know.”  Percy felt the edges of uncertainty encroaching on his mind but he shoved them back.  He’d already made a choice, and he was going to see this through. 

Reyna searched his eyes like a laser, scanning, and he took the chance to step on her foot and throw off her arm.  Nico was standing a few feet behind her, single, dark sword drawn, looking amused. 

“Don’t.”  Percy growled warningly as Reyna opened her mouth to speak—maybe to argue, maybe to apologize, it was all the same anymore. 

“I’m leaving.” Percy repeated again.  The words hung empty and meaningless in the air.  “Goodbye, Reyna.” 

He wished he wasn’t leaving it like this. 

“Percy.”  She spoke right before he left the room, and Nico—holding the door open—paused to give Percy a moment to listen.  “You’re coming back, right?” 

In the whole wide world with its vast lands and miles of uncharted oceans, Percy needed the people who understood.  “Of course.” 

“Then,” she seemed to be struggling to force the words out as she turned her back on them to walk back behind the shield of a desk, “Till we meet again.”

 

The bus ride was long, harrowingly so. 

“Wait.”  Percy looked up when the loudspeaker announced Gladsburough, Oregon.  “We’re getting off, here.”

“We are?”  Nico lisped around a mouthful of glazed doughnut.  His cheeks were full and puffed out like a chipmunk’s. 

“Yeah, there’s something here I want to see.”  Percy wove his way unsteadily to the front of the bus and stepped off, hoping Nico was following and not left behind in raptures of doughnut-induced distraction. 

Percy would have to rely on memory to get there—he’d only been once, way back when the war was first over and he’d had free time for the first time in memory.

He took a left, another left, a right, and three more lefts when he realized he was without a doubt lost. 

“Excuse me?”  Percy stepped off the sidewalk to wave at a lady watering plants in her yard.  She looked like the typical suburban mom, complete with flowered hat and apron, and she squinted at him and then his arm, and then Nico’s slow progress through a doughnut in each hand.  “Can you point me towards Firebrush Cemetery?”

The lady straightened up and pointed down the road.  “You’re going to take two rights and a left, down Sentry Avenue.” 

“Thanks.”  Percy ignored her pitying and querying looks and headed down towards the cemetery, jumping over the cracks on the sidewalk just because he could.

 

“So, what’s so important about this cemetery?” Nico said around yet another mouth of iced, chewy dough.  Percy had no idea where he was getting these—it was like they were just spawning from his jacket pockets. 

Percy stopped dead in his tracks (no, not literally) and eyed Nico.  “You never came?” 

“Came where?”

“The memorial.”  Percy opened up the gate to the graveyard, and it swung with the screeching sound of a joint that needs oiled, badly.  At least the grass was kept shorn short, and here and there flowers dotted the lines of graves that weren’t military-straight, but at least marched in fairly straight lines.  Percy walked between them and kept his eyes from scanning the graves—nobody he knew would be here, because everyone he had ever loved who died received a shroud and a pyre. 

He stopped when his toes brushed the edges of the statue.  When he looked up, feeling Nico step forward and pause next to him, he saw a figure of a man standing tall and striding on a horse, cast of smooth and liquid-looking bronze. 

But when he shuffled his feet and focused—really _focused_ —on the statue, he saw the shape of the unimportant historical figure drop like a cloth off an art unveiling Rachel once made him go to. 

They were crossed swords, one of Celestial Bronze and the other of Imperial Gold, supersized to be easily taller than Percy and up on a pedestal.  They made a slightly lopsided ‘x’ shape, like the letter couldn’t hold itself up under the weight of all the words carved into it. 

On each sword there were names carved in horribly tiny font, winding around the front and back from the hilt to the tip of the sword resting on the marble base. 

Two camps, a sword for each.  Dozens—hundreds—of names marching like soldiers along the shiny, hot metal surface. 

“IN HONOR OF OUR FALLEN HEROES,” The base proclaimed in bold, strong letters that stood out stark against the carved background.  Every name indented into the surface of the giant swords was the name of a warrior—a kid, a demigod or faun or descendent—who had lost their life in the Second War. 

Percy refused to look at all those names for long, instead focusing on the base itself.  It was a square that stood about two feet off the ground, and it was carved with patterns and pictures of important moments. 

Each time he came here, the three times he’d done so, Percy found something new. 

In between the carving of the Athena Parthenon and Arachne, there was a flagpole with the sigil of the Fifth Cohort, something Percy hadn’t noticed before.  Of course there was plenty of symbolism in there regarding the seven of the prophecy, and it was most heavily weighted toward Jason, in a stupid attempt at healing the raw hurt every survivor felt at the loss.

“That’s a boat.”  Nico’s voice broke through Percy’s inspection.  He was standing on the other side of the base, brow furrowed and looking at a specific spot. 

Percy came around the edge and let out a bark of laughter.  “That’s the Pax.”  Percy crouched and touched a finger to the palm-sized boat. 

“The what?”  Nico crouched as well.  “It seems like a bit of a loser boat.”

“That’s the height of the Roman Navy.”  Percy joked.

“You’re kidding.”  Nico eyed the picture dubiously.  “I’m assuming it’s more impressive in person, and before some half-blood carted it around.”

“No, and no.  I actually had to fix it up some to take it to Alaska.”  At Nico’s incredulous look, Percy said, “have you not heard this story?” 

Nico shook his head, shaggy hair flying.  “Not this one.” 

“Man, you were out of the loop.”  Percy clapped Nico on the back and turned from the memorial site, letting it fall back into the shape of the historical rider dude in the corner of his eye.  “I’ll tell you on the way to the bus.” 

 

At the second to last stop before nightfall Percy decided it’d be best to find a place to bunker down for the night. 

He knew this town.  He’d been here before—he knew people, well, a person, in the area very well.  She lived a while’s drive away but he’d be stopping in the next day, just not yet.  He wanted to be well-rested and sane for that visit.

“I need food.”  Percy declared, walking in circles around the bench where Nico was flopped into a boneless pile.  He was used to sleeping a lot more than nine hours a day, he hadn’t even gotten a nap on the bus, and the wear was showing.  “Nico, food.” 

“I need sleep.”  Nico mumbled back.  It was easy for him to be sleepy, what with his limitless doughnuts of dubious origin, but Percy needed a bite to eat before he could turn in. 

“Okay,” Percy turned and nudged Nico up.  “Go find a hotel room with the usual rules.  I’m going to track down a pizza and meet you there.”

The usual rules were that the place couldn’t have women of alternative business in the lobby, men with guns and wrinkled coats outside, and it had to be the closest hotel to a water source.  Here, it would be one of two on the edge of the nearby river, and Percy could figure it out from which of those easy enough. 

“You be ‘kay?”  Nico asked, slurring slightly, as he stood and shouldered his pack. 

“I’ll be fine.”  Percy breezed.  “See you in fifteen.”

In typical Percy Jackson luck, though, it wasn’t as easy as that.  Percy grabbed a pizza, bagged it instead of boxed it (so he could carry it without having to hold it, flat-palmed, like a waiter) and headed for the river. 

The day of doing nothing had worn him out in ways that only days like that could, so he wasn’t paying any attention to the shadows in the dark of the alleyways he was passing.  It was his own fault, really, when he got tugged into one. 

“Really, man?”  Percy couldn’t help but demand of the bigger, broader, and probably less-morally sound man who shoved him away from the streetlight and farther into the dark alley. 

The man flicked out a jackknife—a small thing, really, but Percy’s sword wasn’t going to do jackshit against a mortal and he didn’t really want to end up with the inevitable flesh wound that would result from an unarmed resistance against a blade.  Percy dropped the bag of food to the side and held his hand up wearily.

The man kicked the bag away, like he thought Percy was going to dive for it, and yanked the backpack off of Percy’s back. 

Whoever the guy was, behind his bearded face and dirty hands, he clearly didn’t mind taking advantage of an amputee.  He dug through the bag and tossed everything to the side and ground when he pulled it out, discarding the baggie of golden drachmas with a snort of derision.  He probably thought they were costume gold or chocolate gold. 

“That’s it?”  He held the empty bag up with a shaking hand and spoke with a raspy voice.  Percy really didn’t want to hurt the guy; he just wanted to head on his way.

“That’s it.”  Percy bent to pick his stuff back up and go, but his thief yanked him back up and socked him across the face, sending him reeling against the wall.  Fireworks exploded under his skin as Percy found himself, once again, pinned to a wall, only this time face first. 

“Hey, kid.”  The man’s breath was harsh and stinking in his ear, like fish on a hot day, and Percy struggled against him.  With his arm pinned behind him like this, like a corkscrew in his shoulder and elbow joint, he was pinned to the grimy alley wall like a bug to a card.  “How much cash you got?” 

His accent was strong, cut-off vowels, choppy enough that Percy had to think for a second about the question. 

“Not much.”  Percy breathed against the wall.  It was true—while he had the most money he’d ever had, recently, it was all compounded in little gold circles that would be pretty useless to mister mortal.  Percy gave his shoulder a roll.  If he could wiggle his arm away, getting loose and out of the area would be a hat trick. 

“You get I ain’t gonna believe you.”  The man behind him said, which Percy deciphered to roughly mean ‘you know I think you are lying’.  Thank the gods for being raised in the New York area—no accent too thick, no grammar too bad, that Percy would not be able to understand.  Percy wished he didn’t understand, not that he could especially blame the guy, but honestly he was having a rough day as it was. 

“Search me, then.”  He dared. 

Mr. Thief kept him pinned with one hand and dug into his jeans pockets with the other.  Percy kept his eyes on the wall and wished he could just send an elbow into this guy’s face and be done with it, have the searching fingers out of his clothes. 

The fingers withdrew with the dollar and fifty-seven cent change from the pizza, which were quickly tucked into a pocket.  Percy let his forehead rest against the wall while he took a breath in and out and thought about how horrible the humans could be. 

He could have stood up for himself, fought back for that dollar and fifty-some cents.  But that would have made him more cruel than he was willing to admit, just yet.

He scooped up the bag and his stuff, shoving things back into random pockets as he walked and tried to squelch the empty feeling that was settling in his stomach. 

 

The next day Nico woke Percy up bright and early. 

“If we’re going to drop in on her, we should get a move on.”  He insisted as he rolled out of bed and to the shower.  Percy lay there on the mattress and thought about how un-ready he was for this—for the visit, for Oegathis, for anything that he desperately wanted but was approaching too fast. 

The bus ride over to Christa Mereda was blessedly short, and Percy guided himself and Nico off the streets into the community area onto a welcoming white-picketed road.  Even with the gentle nature of the area, Percy couldn’t help scanning the space between houses for men with knives.  If nico noticed, he didn’t say anything, stayed silent and thoughtful as they drew up to the small, grey-painted house. 

Percy pressed the buzzer once, then again after a moment.  The place looked different than when he last stood here—it was crisper, somehow, the colors more vibrant and the edges of the house and the yard more clearly defined.

The door before him swung open and Nico took a step back into Percy’s shadow.

“Hey,” Percy smiled up at Mr. Chase, with his familiar ruffled beard and rumpled clothes, adjusting his glasses further up his nose.  “Is Annabeth here?” 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry I missed last week’s posting date—finals came and with them the black dog of doom, and it wasn’t coming out right. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with the story!
> 
> Tobi.


	25. Concrete Doorstops.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Next chapter goes up tomorrow! Sorry again about the break, but now that my laptop is fixed there is no chance of me being electrocuted for doing what I love. 
> 
> What did you think of the chapter? Let me know.
> 
> Tobi.

Chapter 25—Concrete Doorstops. 

_Previously: “Hey,” Percy smiled up at Mr. Chase, with his familiar ruffled beard and rumpled clothes, adjusting his glasses further up his nose.  “Is Annabeth here?”_

 

“Percy.”  Mr. Chase said after a moment of standing there and gaping. 

“And Nico.”  Percy waved behind him to indicate Nico, who continued to look as though he’d like the melt into the pavement. 

“Mr. Chase.”  Nico acknowledged with a nod, which Annabeth’s father returned. 

“Is Annabeth here?”  Percy asked again.  Mr. Chase was still staring at him—his eyes flickered down to Percy’s arm but he thankfully didn’t ask questions or comment.

“Um,” Mr. Chase’s eyes, behind his round horn-rimmed glasses, looked large and owl-like, startled. 

“No, I’m afraid she isn’t.”  His brow knitted, concern written all over his face, and Percy’s stomach clenched. 

“Is she…” His voice shriveled and died in his throat—he had to swallow and try again.  “Is she okay?  Like, she’s not hurt, is she?” 

“No!”  Annabeth’s father said quickly.  Then, he added, “at least, not to my knowledge.  Why don’t you come in?”

He held the door open for them and Percy stepped in, hoping Nico was following close behind and not rooted to the sidewalk outside.

Inside was a lot like Percy remembered it—far from the house of Annabeth’s childhood, when Mr. Chase had been sealed off from the rest of the house, a mixed landfill of toys for her half-brothers, this one was clean, almost stringent.  The boys were older and better at picking up after themselves, and gone during most of the day anyway.  Mr. Chase’s history obsession had infected the rest of the house in the form of books on most flat surfaces, and various maps outlining battles and strategies pinned to the wall carefully.

Inside the house, Percy sat down on a sofa tenderly.  He had vivid memories of visiting Annabeth here one day, when they were still together as a couple, and sitting on a pile of thumbtacks she had been using. Nico didn’t sit down at first, instead gravitating to one of the brown and orange streaked maps of Europe. 

“I remember this.”  He muttered to no one in particular, tapping on the paper with a fingernail. 

Mr. Chase, lowering himself into an oversized armchair, made a strangled noise.  The map must have been from a long time ago, long before Nico would (normally) have been born. 

“Nico’s an old man.”  Percy reassured Mr. Chase, hoping he’d put two and two together and figure out that this was Nico, the Nico that his daughter had fought with.

Percy knew Annabeth had told her dad about most of the fighting, most of the wars.  If he was allowed to he would have been on the frontlines, memorizing things in that mad-scientist way of his, his obsession with war and it’s soldiers. 

He also knew that Annabeth carefully edited her stories—she spoke with a level and impassive voice, speaking as if relaying a battle made up of tin soldiers, like she hadn’t known them and cried when the died, like she hadn’t stared out across a bloody battlefield and said she wanted to build something permanent to remember them by. Percy knew that there were some things she cut out altogether—including, he hoped, certain parts of Jason’s and Annabeth’s stories. 

It was doubtless he’d have heard of Nico di Angelo, especially of the winter after the quest to save Annabeth, when she would have needed someone to talk to and she was still trying to salvage her relationship with her father.  Percy didn’t think they’d ever formally met, though, and he quickly introduced the two. 

“Mr. Chase, Nico di Angelo.”  He waved his hand between the two.  “Mr. Chase is Annabeth’s father, and Nico is a son of Hades.”

Mr. Chase’s eyes darkened slightly—just a twitch that Percy would have missed had he not been scanning, searching for any signs that they wouldn’t be safe here.  He trusted Mr. Chase, but then he had trusted Thalia and he had trusted the gods, and while Thalia may have had good reasons she still broke his trust.

Percy glanced at Nico to see his reaction.  He was staring calmly at the map again, but his back and torso where still tense, his hands carefully placed to where he could pull out his swords at a moment’s notice.  He had no reason to trust Mr. Chase, Percy knew, so the only reason he was still here and not running was because he trusted Percy enough to keep him out of undue danger.  That, or he didn’t care. 

“Where is Annabeth?”  Percy jumped right in to the main question, the big question.

“She got a call,” Mr. Chase leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, “from Thalia.  The Hunters ran into a spot of trouble, apparently, and Annabeth’s consultation was needed.  She rode out to Idaho this morning.  I imagine she’ll be back tomorrow morning.” 

Percy tried to weigh the options in his mind.  On the one hand, it would be nice to see Annabeth again.  With so long as each other’s constant companion, after years of training himself to think that all was not well in the world unless Annabeth was in eyesight, it felt somehow _wrong_ to be away from her for so long. 

It was one reason that Annabeth had started living out with her dad on the West coast. 

That, and she was elected an ambassador between the camps and the Hunters, so that she could keep in touch with Thalia more frequently.  Both of them began to feel the sting of Luke’s loss more acutely when the war was finally over, and Jason’s loss had been an injury to both of them.  Annabeth needed to know she could stand on her own two feet, or something like that, and needed to know she was still useful in some capacity.  Percy did, too, except he was next to useless as an ambassador, what with his habit of offending officials and breaking things.  Plus, the Hunter’s didn’t work with boys if they could help it.

Percy sighed and ran a hand through his hair.  He could stay and see her again, but that would mean another day gone on the search for Oegathis.  Was that something he was willing to give?

_“What will you sell—what will you bargain, throw away, for this?”_ Reyna’s voice rang through his head and he shook it to dispel the voice, making both Nico and Mr. Chase look at him funny.

“You’re welcome to stay the night, Percy.”  Mr. Chase said, waving an ink-stained hand towards the hallway.  “You know where Annabeth’s room is.

“I’m afraid,” he stood up with a groan and a wince, “that I need to return to work.  Make yourselves at home, boys, and if you’d like to stay the sheets in her room are clean and there’s food in the fridge.” 

Mr. Chase would likely lock himself in his office for hours at a time, possibly all night, working on whatever project had most recently caught his attention.

Percy stood after the older man in the sweater vest and hesitated.  The door to the outside was right there, and if they left now they could catch the train before it left, and if Oegathis was in the middle of Washington than they may be able to make it before it got _dark_ dark.

“This way.”  He muttered, turning left from the couch towards the inner hallway lined with pictures of smiling children and parents.  If it weren’t for Annabeth’s frame dotting some of them, it would have looked like a normal, functional family with very little godly interference—they wouldn’t have had to move, wouldn’t have had to keep steak knives cast out of Celestial Bronze stashed in the drawer with the normal ones, wouldn’t have had to double and triple lock doors to make sure the house was relatively safe. 

They would never say a word to her again, but Annabeth still felt guilt like she had when she was younger.  It was part of the reason she stayed away from the house when she could, jumping between camps and Olympus. 

That was another reason she needed physical distance from Percy: she still had a lot of work to do on Olympus, particularly on ground support between Olympus and the war-torn areas of the world, and Percy was no longer welcome there. 

“Here we go.”  Percy swung his backpack down onto Annabeth’s quilted bed and shrugged his shoulders stiffly.  Carrying the backpack was always hell on his shoulders, especially his bad shoulder.  He had to keep it cocked forward to hold the strap on, regardless of snapping the sternum-strap together.  After a while he would forget about having to hold his arm in place, but the shoulder was still stiff and uncomfortable when he finally released it. 

Percy cast around the room for something—anything—to suggest that the room belonged to someone who had changed, had been changed, by the wars and losses.  The only noticeable difference was that the pictures of him—pictures the two of them had accumulated here and there throughout their lives—had been moved to places out of the way, all except for one. 

One picture, a photograph of him, her, and Tyson, was pinned on the wall with a couple of movie ticket stubs, reminders of their ‘normal’ life they had between quests. 

Percy couldn’t help noticing that the picture she kept prominent was one where his left side wasn’t in the frame, where someone wouldn’t have to see the reminder of what he had lost. 

“How’s the arm?”  Nico had gravitated towards Percy, as if Percy’s lack of comfort had been radiating in ways he could see. 

“Not bad.”  Percy said.  He’d wait until Nico went to sleep and then pop a couple pain pills so he could sleep, too. 

“C’mon.”  Percy slipped off his jeans and his shirt and climbed under Annabeth’s familiar blankets.  Nico followed a moment later, letting Percy adjust the pillow to where he could slide his sword under the side.  He turned his back to Percy but shuffled in so they were nearly touching, close enough that they could reach out to touch when they needed to. 

 

In the morning, Percy de-tangled himself from the blankets and Nico’s grabby hands.  Nico never thought he was a grabby person, but one of them always ended up wrapped around the other and Percy was fairly sure it wasn’t him. 

“Oof.”  Percy grunted when he stumbled into the wall on his way out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him.  Rubbing his arm, he rounded the corner just in time to find himself with an armful of t-shirt and curly hair. 

“Percy!”  Annabeth, lovely, wonderful Annabeth wrapped her muscular arms around him.  He hugged her back gratefully. 

“Annabeth.”  It was perfect, her being here with him.  Part of the weight on his chest eased off and he could breathe a little easier, even if her arms were constricting him. 

“How have you been?  What are you doing here?”  She backed up a bit, still keeping her fingers on his ribs like to remind herself that he was—in fact—standing there. 

“I’ve been…” Percy remembered suddenly that Nico was still back in her room, and he yelled for him over his shoulder.  Turning back to Annabeth, “I’ve been good, yeah.  Better.  And I’m on a bit of a trip, actually; I’ll tell you later.” 

Nico emerged from the bedroom, rubbing his eyes and peering around owl-like.  “Oh.”  He said softly upon seeing Annabeth.  His eyes cast around for something—maybe Mr. Chase, maybe a weapon—as he walked up to the two of them. 

“Nico.”  Annabeth says warmly, if a bit aloofly.  She was never as close to Nico as Percy was, only because of necessity—Nico always seemed to gravitate towards Percy, same as her, but they revolved on opposite sides. 

“Annabeth.”  Nico still looked wary, but he moved further into the room, like he was about to move towards the kitchen for food. 

“How was the, um, thing?”  Percy turned back to Annabeth.  She was whole, with no injuries he could see, and he could feel her right beneath his fingertips.  Whole. 

She raised an eyebrow. 

“The thing with the Hunters.  The reason you were gone.”  Percy clarified further.  Nico, in the kitchen, snorted. 

“Oh!”  She left his arm span to turn back towards the couch and sit down.  She always sat stretched out, like she was trying to cover more distance and make herself more immediately present.  “That thing.  Sit down, I’ll tell you what happened.”

Percy sat down obediently and Nico leaned in the kitchen doorway, munching on a slice of toast. 

“So, I got a call from Thalia yesterday,” She gestured with her hands to add visual to the story as she told it, “and she said they had a small town getting ripped apart by a ‘monster with thick skin’.  So the Hunters showed up and started tracking, and you know what they found?  Lion tracks.  Right down the main street.  Well, they set up a stake-out type thing and were waiting for it and you know what showed up?  A Nemean Lion.  Like, Thalia had _already_ had a run in with a Nemean Lion once in her life, and that was unusual for most demigods, but two is just excessive.  Anyway it got free and started tearing up the local’s sheep and linens, for some reason—I think it’s actually because the sheets on the clothesline resemble prey, what with the motion and all—but Thalia couldn’t manage it herself, and it seems like her Hunters haven’t been sleeping well.  So she called me in and we got it taken care of; we managed to lure it into an abandoned grain cellar and drop a pile of stuff on it from the top long enough to stun it, and then a Hunter could sneak up on it.  That was my idea.”  She added, looking proud of her strategy. 

“It was brilliant.”  Percy admitted.  It was a much more intelligent plan than throwing astronaut food at its maw, that was for sure.

Percy though it back over and stopped, suddenly.  “Hold on—you said the Hunters were having trouble sleeping.”

“Yeah.” 

“What kind of trouble?”

“Nightmares, like you wouldn’t believe!” 

“Oh, I’d believe it.”  Percy managed to say, even though he was somewhere very far away. 

Thalia had bargained away the nightmares onto him, right?  He should have been having nightmares much worse than he had been—he had nightmares, horrible, cruel, mind-numbing and heartbreaking ones, but they hadn’t gotten unbearable, they hadn’t gotten all that much _worse_.  But Thalia’s Hunter’s had. 

 

Percy wished he could say that he handled everything after that easily. 

Breakfast went over without complication, technically, but the entire time he had been getting and eating food Percy’s mind was whirling. 

He hadn’t been getting the brunt of Phobos’s fear, the Hunters had. But something had happened, because Phobos had needed his blood; Thalia had been guilt-stricken thinking about it, had offered an explanation that had made sense, but now…now it was moot.  It hadn’t followed through, Percy hadn’t been having worse nightmares, only his usual terrors.  Percy should have noticed, should have _said something_ , should have tracked down Thalia and demanded more of an explanation—

“Stop.”  Annabeth said lowly.  Percy lifted his head to stare at her, confusion.  She had leaned back against the kitchen wall, still holding a half-eaten slice of toast, but her eyes were narrowed as she watched Percy.  Nico, sitting on the counter near the blender, lifted an eyebrow and kept eating, keeping his eyes fixed on the both of them. 

“Stop—?” Percy repeated back.  ‘Stop’ wasn’t enough for him to work with, and he was done with jumping on simple commands, rankling under a chafing collar of authority.  He knew Annabeth, and he wasn’t going to let his stupid, struggling mind throw his trust for her under the bus. 

That trust had been around longer than his issues, and this was one person he wouldn’t let be tainted. 

“Stop doing that.”  She gestured towards him, slouching against the far shelves, with her hand holding toast.  “Stop blaming yourself for whatever you are.”

“I wasn’t—”

_‘You know what_?’ the voice in his head—that supremely unhelpful voice that somehow sounded of both Jason and Rachel, the two biggest voices of emotional reason in his life—whispered between his ears, “ _we’re done.”_

_“No we’re not!”_ Percy furiously thought back.  “ _We are not done!”_

_“We’re done lying.”_   The voices insisted. 

“ _Uh, no,”_ Percy was not done lying right now, was he?  Could he just shove away something that useful?

Apparently he could, because he was speaking before he actually thought it through. 

“Yeah,” He looked down at the scuffed tile floor so he didn’t have to meet her—either of their—eyes, “I’m worried about Thalia, and her Hunters.  I think they’re having nightmares, and it’s my fault, if they are.”

The air was still, as if shocked into silence. 

Percy raised his eyes, slowly, fearing what he’d see there.  Pity, refusal to accept that it was probably his fault?

Instead, he found pride in Annabeth’s gaze, which wasn’t unusual for her and her fatal flaw, but rare when pointed at him, for something he’d said rather than something he’d done.  She nodded at him tightly and took another bite of her jelly-slathered toast; Percy’s admission accepted and moved on.  Nico didn’t look proud like she did, but pleased, with a slight smirk playing at the edges of his mouth and eyes, like he knew all along that Percy wasn’t going to deny feeling guilt, like he’d placed a bet on it and now he got to cash in. 

“You know it’s not your fault, right?” Annabeth added after a moment.  “Even if you had a hand in it, nightmares are beyond your control, and it’s not your fault.”

Percy shook his head; Annabeth couldn’t know that, because she hadn’t been there.  She hadn’t had been tied up and had a blade slick her stomach up with blood, been betrayed by a person she loved like a sister, woken up in the middle of the night by terrors that made her want to throw up, break something, break _herself_. 

She couldn’t be right in that he was faultless, blameless. 

But, as he thought about the wicked-cruel gleam in Phobos’s eye, of the nightmares that still plagued him that he wished to Zeus he could get rid of, maybe she was right this time.

 

“So,” Annabeth was standing in the doorway of the bathroom as Percy sat on the bathtub rim, Nico holding a bottle of some medical-grade wound cleanser and a rag, painfully washing off Percy’s shoulder, “what brought you boys into town, anyway?”

Nico set the bottle to the side and looked at Percy before going back to his work, carefully pulling out stitches. 

Percy took another swig of whatever bitter alcohol Nico had passed him—not for drinking’s sake, the temptation of which passed up most demigods not related to Dionysus, but for pain that Percy’s pills were no longer covering. 

“I’m looking for Oegathis.”  Percy said, wincing as Nico slowly drew one of the sleek threads out of his resisting body. 

“You’re kidding.”  Annabeth pushed off the wall to stand up straight and look at Percy incredulously.  “Of all the plans you’ve come up with, this?  This is the most foolhardy.”

Nico yanked a thread out with particular force and Percy yelped, turning to glare before responding.  “I know, Annabeth.  Believe me, I know.”

“Then why?”  Annabeth’s words were soaked in concern and disbelief, the same as they always were when Percy formed a plan, because he was a leader at heart and not a strategist and they all knew it.

“Because I can’t go on like this.”  Percy pointedly looked at the bottle of clear alcohol in his hand and the bloody stiches lying on the porcelain side of the sink.   

Nico brushed a thumb along Percy’s wound seam, in a move that might have been calming—soothing even—if it weren’t for the fact that it sent a tingle of pain coursing along his nerves.  Annabeth knitted her brow and tightened her lips, but nodded, hair falling back over her shoulder in a cascade. 

Percy took another swig of the alcohol to calm his nerves back down. 

 

 

 

 


	26. Brown Paper Bag.

Chapter 26—Brown Paper Bag. 

_Previously: Annabeth knitted her brow and tightened her lips, but nodded, hair falling back over her shoulder in a cascade._

_Percy took another swig of the alcohol to calm his nerves back down._

 

“I guess I should give you a proper, demigod farewell.”  Annabeth said jokingly, one corner of her mouth tugging up in a warped smile.  

“We have those?”  Percy joked back.  In all their years of quests and goodbyes, sometimes for what was thought to be the last time, there was never anything considered as a ‘proper farewell’.  They’d been sent off with supplies, they’d snuck out in the middle of the night, and they’d been driven out of camp on one, memorable occasion. The only constant was worried looks given that showed the sympathy and the ‘better you than me’ expressions.  

Nico gave a bark of laughter from behind them, burdened with bags.  He also held a bottle of chemical cleaner in one hand and Percy instinctively flinched, knowing that that was surely coming for him.  Nico had the right to laugh, of course—of all the quests that kid had debarked on, he never got a farewell, let alone anything that could be described as proper.  At least Percy and Annabeth had been noticed, even if it was usually too much attention.  

“Well, we’re going to _start_ having proper, demigod farewells.”  Annabeth said calmly.  She took a couple bags from Nico and almost handed Percy a couple but caught herself.  The only reason he noticed at all was because of the slight widening of her sleet-grey eyes, and the aborted twitch of her wrist.  She was smarter than most, and she cared enough about Percy that the choices she made—knowingly, deliberately—were catered to his needs, just like they always had been.  Annabeth, his protector and soldier; she deserved so much better.  She handed him two, enough that he could only just juggle them with one hand.  

“How’s that going to work?”  Percy started towards the car, tossing the statement over his shoulder.  there was hardly anything called ‘normal’ for a demigod farewell.  there were well-wishes and care relayed through help in preparations, through prayers to some of the more kindhearted and forgiving gods for safety, and through offers of weapons and advice.  The Romans didn’t bank on ceremony, and the Greeks even less.  

“I’m going to send you with food, new knowledge, and hugs.”  Annabeth tucked her own bag over her shoulder and dug out one wrinkly paper bag and one old, familiar looking thermos.  

“Is that…?” Percy could hardly believe his eyes.  The thermos, decorated with figures of Hercules in various stories (which was a lot less cool now that Percy had actually met the dude and been disappointed), was chilly on one side and warm on the other as he took it.  

“The thermos Hermes gave us?  Yes.”  Annabeth beamed proudly as Nico craned his neck over her shoulder to see the thermos, looking curious.  

“How did you ever get it back?  You lost it.  In the sea of monsters.”  Nico added, as if the two of them didn’t already know.  both percy and annabeth looked up from staring fondly at the thermos to stare questioningly at Nico. 

“What?”  he crossed his arms and fidgeted.  “Everyone tells you guys’s stories at camp.   i may not have been quite as jaded against your ‘great deeds’ back then.”  

He looked cranky, as if remembering a Nico that was not cynical and dark made him feel embarrassed, like looking at an awkward school picture years later.  

“Aww,” Percy couldn't resist a little teasing, “that’s okay, Nico.  I did do awesome things, and i’m sure it was impossible to avoid all the tales of my greatness.” 

Both Annabeth and Nico simultaneously struck at his stomach in retaliation, but Percy managed to bat them off with a thermos.  It didn't make a half-bad shield, at that.  

“Give me that.”  Annabeth took it from Percy and shoved it at Nico’s chest.  “It’s got soup for you.  I hope you don’t mind alphabet soup.”  

A wistful look passed over Nico’s face, but it was gone like a fleeting light, before Percy could get a good read on it.  

“I made you a sandwich.” Annabeth carefully handed Percy the brown bag, like she was handling a baby or a glass sculpture.  Percy glanced down and saw the familiar scrawl of numbers along the side—a math equation she’d been working out and unthinkingly wrote on the side in her loopy, swirly handwriting.  It was something she’d done without realizing it for years now, and he was only just beginning to realize it had been a long time since he’d been handed a receipt or a list with a lopsided path of numbers on it.  It hurt something in his lungs, like all the numbers of the days between the last time and now had collected in there and started to drill.  

“Thanks.”  Nico said softly, after Percy failed to speak for a moment.  

“Yeah,” Percy was jarred back to the present and away from the mental image of jumping, loopy numbers and fractions, “thanks.” 

“Anytime.”  Annabeth slipped an arm over Percy’s shoulder and pressed one, chaste kiss to the top of his head.  She tossed the other one over Nico’s shoulder and drew him in while he wrinkled his nose, just to relax when she held him for a moment.  Again the wistful look passed, only briefer this time before he got it back under control.  Percy wanted to yank it back again.  

“So, thats the food and the hug.”  Percy prompted.  There were standing out on the sidewalk near her house, with the occasional car driving past on its way to work or school or whatever normal people did around this time, and he wanted to get on his way to the only mission he had left.

“Now the knowledge.”  Annabeth shifted backwards, dragging her arms away from the two of them and turning away slightly.  Percy knew that was what she did when she needed to think of how to say something, to get the words to form right in her mouth and out of it. It wasn't a good sign.  

Standing there, in the light, she looked a lot like she did when he first saw her.  Admittedly, he had still been a little loopy at the time of their first introduction; but the picture was still as crisp as porcelain in his mind, preserved by having called it up dozens of times when he needed the reminder of a friend.  her hair was still curly and fair, like a princesses, but she looked tanned and hardened by the elements.  Her jean shorts and t shirt might have been the same ones she’d worn for years, only bigger.  Standing there, she looked as purely his as ever, but as unattainable as she’d ever been before.  it was daunting, and kind of like whenever he went to tie his shoes in the morning—it didn’t hurt, especially, but it was an undeniable reminder of things that were now _lost_. 

“I wanted to remind you of something,” she said slowly, “and please don’t take it the wrong way—but do you remember Icarus?” 

“Yeah,”  Percy said immediately, as Nico faded into the background, blending with the shadows cast by the trees that arched overhead menacingly, “I do.  He was trapped with Daedalus, and he almost escaped on a pair of wings, but he flew to high and didn’t listen to Daedalus and the wings fell off.  He died.”

“Yes, but also no.”  Annabeth touched a finger to Percy’s backpack strap and tapped it a couple of times, not meeting his eyes, but not avoiding them.  “There’s another way of looking at it.”

“How’s that?”  Percy almost—almost—didn’t want to ask. But this was Annabeth, and if she was bringing it up at all, it was important. Maybe vital, maybe wrong, but important.  

“Icarus was close—so close—to escaping unscathed, and alive.  But he wanted to touch the sun too, and he lost it all.  He forgot that he was already doing great things just in flying, without having to go higher.”  

Annabeth met Percy’s eyes searchingly and smoothed her hand back over his backpack strap.  She tapped one finger against it and took a step back, and offered a crooked smile.  She turned and walked away, her hair glowing a soft halo around her, and Nico melted back out of the shadows.  

Percy took a couple steps away, hesitantly, and then with more force, and he shoved the meanings of the story to the back of his mind like so many skeletons in a closet.  He may be Icarus in her eyes, flying to close to the sun when he was so close to living, but he wasn’t. 

He was Orpheus, steps away from getting something he desperately needed back from the grave, and he couldn’t afford to look back now.  

 

He and Nico hopped on a bus headed further north, bound for the southern border of Washington.  

“Stop that.”  Percy insisted, after about ten minutes of near-silence punctuated only by Nico kept nervously touching his swords, strapped to his back, and it was making Percy feel nervous.  Old habits—one demigod gets a bad feeling in their gut, and the rest of them had better listen or face the scary (and usually slimy or scaly) consequences—die hard, as his entire life proved, over and over.  

“Stop what?” Nico muttered towards the window.  Percy tapped his hand the next time he went to move it and Nico’s eyes narrowed.  

“I didn’t even notice.” Another mutter, this time darker.  Coal black eyes darted up and around the bus, almost devoid of passengers, and Percy habitually checked the ceiling and floors.  

“What are you feeling?”  Percy didn’t bother asking what Nico _thought_.  That was an empty phrase in their lives, usually, because thought was for strategy and not for in-the-moment survival.  As with dreams and gut feelings, demigods were naturally geared towards recognizing danger long before their conscious mind ever thought ‘ _hey, I might be in trouble’_. 

“Like i’m out of the loop.”  

“What?” 

“I know we’re going to see Oegathis, I know everyone who hears that name looks at  you funny” —like he was deranged, like he deserved pity, like he was a child play-acting at being a grownup and making grownup decisions— “And I know that it pushed Reyna to violence and Annabeth to proverbs.” 

That was true, of course.  Reyna, who was always careful not to tread too harshly on Percy’s toes, had full-on stomped on them in her high-heeled battle shoes.  Annabeth, who wasn’t ever afraid to tell Percy he was making a mistake, had only offered a different view to a story he’d known.  

Percy knew that what they kept guessing his plan was was acting like a underwater earthquake and shaking up everyone.  

“—but I don’t know,” Nico turned away from the window and rested his back to it, still surveying the room at Percy’s back, “ _why_.  Oegathis was never a Mythomagic card.” 

It’d been years since Percy’d really heard Nico mention that old game.  

“He’s also known as ‘The Caster’.”  Percy said slowly.  He turned slightly away from Nico, even as he spoke.  

Nico offered no prompting, just looked at Percy steadily.  

“He specializes in magical stuff, particularly reanimating lost things.  Childhood toys, things lost in fires or broken—“

“Arms eaten by drakens?” 

“I don’t know.  Maybe.” 

“So why is everyone freaking out about this?” 

“Because he’s not…” Percy searched for an appropriate word to describe the man as he was described to him, “particularly kind, or generous.”

“How do you mean.” 

“Like, he’s less of the ‘give-food-to-the-homeless-man’ kind and more of the ‘give-food-to-the-homeless-in-exchange-for-an-undefined-favor’ kind.”

“You’re kidding.” 

“No.” 

“So you’re just going to promise some weirdo a favor— _any_ favor, he could ask for you to kill someone someday!—in exchange for your arm?” 

“No.  Usually he just asks straight up for a price, a gift, something really, really valuable.  But you don’t get to bargain, he tells you what to pay and then he does it.”

“That’s stupid.”  

“You’re really going to judge me on this?” 

“No.  You know why?  Because I’d probably do the same thing.”  Nico ran a hand through his shaggy hair and let it fall to Percy’s knee, squeezing to emphasize his words.  “But that doesn’t mean it’s not stupid.”

 

_“What will you trade—what will you give away for this?”_

_“but he wanted to touch the sun too, and he lost it all.”_

Percy’s head rang with the words, bouncing off his skull and the backs of his eyes like someone had finally put a bullet in his brain.  Jason’s voice tossed it’s way into the mix too, except it was more like cotton, filling the loose parts and making it hard to think, hard to escape the pinging of the statements.  

“ _Soldiers lose things in battle, Percy.  It’s hard, but it doesn’t mean the war is worse off for it.  It happens and you mourn and you move on.”_

For a man who did some really stupid things, like shoving a whole baked potato in his mouth or jumping off the Argo II in his boxers on in his sleep, he was wise sometimes.

Percy tried his best to sleep for the hours to his destination.

 

“Oh, heck.”  Percy said exasperatedly, as he stepped off the bus onto the sidewalk.  The rain fell with increasing pressure on his scalp, quickly soaking his clothes and chilling him to the bone. 

Nico stood under the deluge with all the wet-slenderness and irritation of a cat who’s fallen in the tub and clambered back out, just to glare at the human who pushed him.  

“Rain.”  He said grumpily. 

“Oh, really?”  Percy glanced up and then over, blinking water out of his eyes and trying in vain to pull the sheet of paper with directions out of his pocket with ripping it.  “I hadn’t noticed.” 

“ _I hadn’t noticed_.”  Nico mimicked under his breath, high pitched and mocking.  Percy grinned and ducked under the shelter of the bus stop, Nico practically on his heels.  

Percy turned the map he made this way and that, trying to line it up with the laminated one on the side of the bus stop.  Eventually, glancing around to check for aquatic pedestrians (and ignoring Nico, who had pulled out both of his blades and was pointedly sharpening them and glaring murderously at the ground), Percy pulled out a pocket knife and pried the bus stop one off the wall.  It was light and flexible enough that he rolled it up and stuck it in his backpack to replace his own soaked and illegible one.  Leaving a handful of mortal coins that would hopefully be enough to cover a new one for the bus, Percy walked back out into the rain.  

“Doesn’t it feel lovely?”  Percy spread his arms and twirled once under the pouring, clean-smelling rain.  

Nico swore behind him bitterly and brushed past, and Percy took a little laughter—maybe a touch hysterical and apprehensive, because of where they were treading in the rain—but laughter.  

 

“Well, this is it.”  

“Percy, this is an IRS building.”  The brick building that climbed into the sky in front of them did indeed have a sign out front declaring that to be this particular section’s purpose.  

“Yes, it is.”  Percy agreed. This was most certainly the address, so if there was an Oegathis to be found nearby, this was the location. 

The glass-in-oak doors swung open smoothly, dauntingly, when Percy pushed them.  

The secretary, tucked behind his desk, looked up as they approached.  His name was ‘Ryan’ according to the card pinned to his shirt.  He met both of their eyes and twitched his nose, and barely glanced down at Percy’s stump.  

“Here to see Mr. Oegathis?”  Ryan returned to typing away at the sleek, modern computer without waiting for a response; he spoke like he knew they were demigods and searching for Oegathis for his magical gifts, not whatever job he was employed with here at the IRS.  

Maybe he did.  Maybe he was a monster, or an usual acute human who could see through the mist without any trouble, or maybe he himself was a demigod who’d had something returned to him, and all that Oegathis had asked of him was someone to watch the desk and take care of the files, 9-5, five days a week.  

Maybe he’d ask the same of Percy—something mundane, like a desk job.  Maybe Percy would _rather_ keep the arm off than sit behind a desk with a bored expression all day.  

Except, at this point, it would almost be like losing the arm _again_. 

And Percy couldn’t do that. 

Not having come this far.  

Ryan pointed towards the stiff-looking chairs behind him without looking up and, with nothing better to do, Percy shuffled over and sat down.  There were a handful of magazines plastered with plastic-looking women and bold, glaring prints declaring ways to look and feel younger again.  

Percy cracked one open and looked over at Nico, engrossed in an article evaluating the life’s work of a supermodel-turned actress-turned singer.  

“Anything interesting?”  

“She’s a monster.” Nico muttered, turning the page. 

Before Percy could ask whether he was being literal (in the scales-and-slime sense) or figurative (in the ‘someone stop her before she runs for congress or makes another album’ sense), the door on the other side of the room opened.  

The man who stood there, partially obscured, was both simultaneously less dramatic and more intimidating then Percy had expected.  

For one, he didn’t look like your average magician.  There were no robes or odd colors, or staffs or tools or weapons like those carried by the children of Hecate he’d seen at camp.  

Instead, he stood stately in a crisp-cut business suit, sharp blacks standing out against a clean and regular cream color. He looked like the lawyer to take down the big case, the CEO everyone knows not to mess with, the shadowy man with lots of money and an obscure past.  He was clean-shaven and younger than Percy would have assumed, only looking about his mom’s age.  

The only thing that might— _might_ —have hinted at his true talents was his tie.  

Dark navy blue, with a pattern of stars darting their way across the surface.  It looked like something Percy once saw in a Disney film.  

“Percy Jackson?”  His voice was as smooth and professional as his appearance—so much so, that Percy almost missed the thrill of fear at his already knowing his name.  “I’m ready to see you now.” 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: THUS THE HIATUS IS OVER! Aha! 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me, dears. 
> 
> Tobi.


	27. Click. Clack. Bones.

_Previously:_

_“Percy Jackson?”  His voice was as smooth and professional as his appearance—so much so, that Percy almost missed the thrill of fear at his already knowing his name.  “I’m ready to see you know.”_

.

Percy’s legs weren’t quite wanting to hold up his weight as he stood up on them. The shook badly enough that Percy wanted to reach out and grip Nico’s shoulder to support himself, but he didn’t want to, because that would surely be a sign of weakness in the eyes of Oegathis.  

Percy straightened his shoulders and made to take a step forward. 

He’d held the weight of the world on his shoulders, he’d learned to work two-handed things with only one hand, and his legs had carried him all across the U.S. and to Rome and Greece.  Surely they could last a little bit longer to walk him down the hallway. 

Nico dug a sharp finger into his back and Percy jerked forward, feet catching strong under him, in a knee-jerk reaction. 

Well.  

Percy strode past Oegathis, one hand on Riptide, and moved towards the room the man indicated with a long-fingered hand. 

The room was sparsely decorated in a normal, office-building way, with chairs behind the desk, in front of it, and in a corner off to the side.  A burnished metal sign labeled the desk’s owner as ‘Dr. P. Oegathis’ in simple lines.  The whole office could have been plucked straight out of a decorators magazine like those that dotted the tables of the Aphrodite cabin.  That was, except for the random selection of small discs on the wall, each about the size of Percy’s palm, and in a wide array of metallics.  Percy spotted ones that looked like chrome and stainless steel, and other, less common ones—Percy recognized both Celestial bronze and Imperial Gold on sight, and one that looked a lot like Stygian Iron.  Percy reached up to touch one, a soft pink color, and found the tip of his finger repelled, like opposite ends of a magnet.  

“Please, sit down.”  Oegathis waved his manicured hand towards the chair directly opposite the desk, and Percy did.  

“I was wondering who would be the first to show up.”  Oegathis muttered as he settled himself behind the desk, propping his shiny patent-leather shoes up on the dark wood like the punctuation at the end of his sentence.  

“Sorry?”  Nico spoke up from behind Percy, where he apparently chose to stand rather than sit in the back corner on the stool, isolated.  

“You demigods.  Do you know what we call you, us mages and older demigods?”  Oegathis darted his dark eyes from Nico back to Percy with a small, bitter smile tugging at his lips.  

“No.” Oegathis was playing with them, surely, but it would be worth being played with if Percy got what he came for.  It wasn’t like it was something he was unused to. 

“The Children of the Barricades.”  Oegathis formed ever syllable carefully.  It sounded familiar to Percy for a reason he couldn’t place, not unlike deja-vu.  “Only you children won, unlike your name-sakes.”

“That’s nice.”  

“Hmm.”  Oegathis steepled his fingers.  “Do you know, then, how many of you died?  I mean, what rough percentage of the demigod population died in the First and Second Wars?”

Percy opened his mouth to say ‘i don’t know’ ( _i don’t know, because i never_ wanted _to know, because those were my brothers and sisters and i had to watch them fall_ ) but a voice behind him said, quietly, “Sixty-two.”

“Sixty-two.”  Oegathis smiled larger, but just as bitterly, at Nico.  “You would know, wouldn't you, Son of Hades?”  

“Yes.” Nico spoke begrudgingly. 

“How many times did you bump into a former ally or enemy in the Underworld?”  Oegathis fished further. 

“Not once.”  That surprised Percy and he nearly turned to question further, but didn’t.  Nico didn’t deserve this prying.  

“What a surprise.  You know,” Oegathis looked back at Percy (more like drilled into him with his eyes) but it was clear from his tone that he was still speaking to Nico, “I had assumed it would be you first, out of you Children of the Barricades.  You all had lost so much—an incredible amount, really, it was so _inspiring—_ but you, Nico Di Angelo, had lost enough and was just weak enough, i assumed it would be you.

“Instead,” Oegathis, still looking at Percy, clearly switched the target of his barbed words towards the one in his eyesight, “I got Percy Jackson, savior of the world.” 

The sarcastic tone burnt caustically on Percy’s ears.  

“Not quite.  I’m more of a loaner; if you would just sign here. . .”  Percy replied just as sarcastically and Oegathis’s eyebrow jumped minutely.  

“Enough small talk, then.  Let’s get down to business.”  Oegathis carefully turned up his sleeves.  “You want your arm back.”  

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You are aware that this is an irreversible process.”

“Yes.”  Oegathis was rattling off the statements as he started tugging at Percy’s sleeve, turning it up so he could see the red skin, pulled together at a jagged seam. 

Oegathis whistled. “And how much are you willing to give?”

“Almost anything.”  Percy answered confidently.  

Oegathis gave a dark laugh.  He gave Percy a soft, pitying glance; a glance that seemed like one you would give to a poor soul under a delusion.  

“Ready?”  He asked, bracing a hand on Percy’s shoulder, fingers curling around his collarbone.  Possessive.  

Percy, who found that his voice had lodged somewhere painful down in his chest (never there when he needed it, no; but always there for a sarcastic comment that got him in trouble), nodded.  

Percy leaned his head back.  He didn’t want to look down.  It was like when he was a kid, when he had to get a flu shot before school started.  

If i don’t look at it, it won't hurt as much. 

With his head craned back like he was searching the ceiling, he only caught the residual glow when Oegathis’s hands—and Percy’s shoulder—started to glow a prism of grays and greens.  The colors shone off the ceiling and the walls, and Nico’s forced-blank face in the corner, catching the angles of all three.  It reminded Percy of ashy moss, of antique, broken silver, of—

0f the color of the underwater graveyard at his father’s place. 

The _wrong_ hit him like a blow to the head, and he gasped at the same time as the real pain started.  

It was worse than anything Percy had ever felt.  

It was worse than when he had lost the arm in the first place—and that was only because then, at that time, he’d been able to pass out. 

Here that wasn’t an option.  Percy gritted his teeth, feeling a crack in one of the back ones, and squeezed his eyes shut.  A warm trail cut itself down his cheek and in his worried, pained mind it seemed like blood. 

 _Wrong._ Agonizing pain.  _Wrong_.  Excruciating, poring through his bones towards his shoulder, up his spine and across his ribs.  _Wrong._  

“Stop.  Now.”  Someone commanded away from him and it cut through the buzzing in Percy’s ears and the cresending fire in his body.  “Stop it.”

“I can’t.  Not until he says it.”

Percy sank back towards the pain and away from the voices.  

“Percy, i need your consent to go further.”  Oegathis’s voice hissed in his ear, beating back the pain. 

Percy remembered—vaguely—in the back of his mind—that some kinds of magic—the really strong kinds—could only be inflicted with consent—and Oegathis would need his say so.  

“Fine.”

“Say yes.” 

“Yes!”  Percy gasped. 

“Tell me you’ll give me any physical possession.” 

The barriers—Percy thought—the barriers of ownership and payment.  If Oegathis didn’t get Percy’s consent of payment, he wouldn’t continue—and Percy needed him to continue—the things he owned flashed before his eyes.  The clothes off his back—his shoulder armor—little, swimming hippocampi— _Riptide_ —flashed before his eyes.  So few things and so much to give up in a moment’s notice, if that’s what the mage asked for payment.  

“Yes.”  Percy bit out through teeth like Fort Knox, like his jaw was objecting to the promise.  His jaw would just have to deal because the rest of him was in a fucking lot of pain. 

Oegathis hummed and the light (before Percy squinched his eyes shut and focused on the pretty, spinning slights that whirled like galaxies or badly mixed lemonade behind his eyelids) grew to near blinding, and the pain in Percy’s arm got tighter and harsher and _forced_ it’s way back outside of his body and Percy heard screaming nearby, two different tones at once (which was cool, kind of harmonic, in a terrifying and abrasive way), that tapered off when his voice broke into one scream that ended with a harsh inhale and gasping noise from nearby that Percy was pretty sure wasn’t him.  

The pain abated for a moment and Oegathis muttered, “Step one”, as if he was a tech man fixing someone’s computer, only with less badly patterned ties and more magic.  

“Percy.” 

“Whuh?” Percy couldn’t get his jaw to click back together for the ’t’ sound.  apparently it went on strike after he didn’t listen to it. 

“Still conscious?”  Oegathis tapped his shoulder when Percy didn’t answer immediately, too concerned about the facts that he just potentially gave away Riptide and that his jaw was going on strike.

“I—“

“I’ll take that as a yes.  I need you to tell me to continue.”

“I—“

“Just say, ‘yes’.”  Oegathis insisted, his will chafing against Percy’s dwindling mental facilities. 

“Yes.” Percy managed.  

“Will you give me your words?  If i ask, will you be my spokesman, my defender, or my witness?”  

In other words, ‘will you lie for me if ask you to?’, and it grated on Percy like sandpaper. 

“Yeah.”  He said anyway, and the pain dug into his spine and pulled him outward like a bow towards his arm, and the pain settled into a space away from his shoulder he hadn’t felt a real, not-phantom pain in for what felt like a lifetime, but he didn’t look down to see it.  He had no idea what he would end up with, or what it would look like in the middle of the process, but looking would make it real—make it a binding thing, a thing he couldn’t go back on in his own mind. 

The world faded to black. 

 

It was blacker than Tartarus. 

Blacker that obsidian, which reminded him of something he couldn't think of.  

It was blacker than the bog he fell in, when he was drowning and couldn’t save himself.  Helpless.

  

The pain ripped him away from the black this time, instead of Annabeth or life or a rope.  

“Step two.”  That cold, harsh voice in his ear that wouldn’t _just let him fall back into the black, he belonged there, it was comfortable and painless and he was used to darkness by now_ was speaking again.  “Say you’re ready.”

Percy managed to mumble something that apparently passed for consent, which sent another bolt of _wrong_ through his body and mind and something that may have been his soul.  

“Tell me you’re will is mine.  If i call, you’ll act as my ambassador, my protector, and my warrior.”  

The pain started to grow but not as fast as the _wrong_ , which seeped out of Percy and across the floor and scaled the walls to the ceiling, where it shrouded the dancing stars in fog as Percy watched, and Percy started to feel very, very sick. 

 _‘my warrior’_.  

There was a kid in an eyepatch who’d only wanted equality and had died trying to keep from dying as somebody’s pawn.  

‘ _my warrior_ ’.  

There was Luke—Luke who’d seemed strong, infallible, to Percy—Luke who Percy _loved_ and had been _betrayed by_ —before dying because he’d let himself, his body, be used as a living armor by a mad titan, because of a promise.  

 _‘my warrior’_. 

There was Annabeth, who’d been given a ‘quest’ by someone who was supposed to _love_ her, _protect_ her, but instead gave her a coin that had only ever been a death sentence—and Annabeth had done it, because she was her mother’s _warrior_ , even when it cost too much. 

 

“No.” Percy gasped out, and repeated it again, and again, and again, until the pain flared like a burning sun and faded, and he threw up. 

The black came back and gripped him, dragging him to the door, and this time 

no one

stopped

it.

 

“Percy.”  

“Perseus Jackson.” 

“Don’t you die on me, you bastard.”

“Don’t die.” 

“You can’t die.”

“Stop dying, damn you!”

“Percy?”

 

It was still dark when the big, black, darkness let up on a Percy a bit.  He came to just enough to catch a flash, here and there. 

Darkness outside a window with peeling paint on the sides. 

Water—under him, clinging to his skin and his hair, and falling from the sky like stars. 

But stars didn’t fall like rain—it was a lot rarer—and more special, because, like his mother once told him as she leaned out of the window with him and her long hair tickled his cheek and she smelled of a mix of peppermint and something floral, like roses, like he always imagined angels would smell like—and this was just rain, because he could feel it and he couldn’t do that with stars. 

Percy tried to mutter something but it didn’t work, and someone nearby laughed, but the darkness dragged him away again before he could turn to look.  

 

“Percy, you really need to get up now.”  This was not his usual voice.  This was not a voice he was used to hearing, sneaking into the crevices of his dreams.  This was an older voice.  

“Percy.  You’ve had enough attention now, give someone else a shot!” The voice teased through a thick layer of _worry, worry, worry_ in it’s voice.  

The air smelled like engine grease, and ash.  

 

“Tell me you can find her.”  It was not the new voice, it was the old voice, who spoke.  It was the rough, clattering voice of a name on the tip of Percy’s tongue.  If what’s-his-name was here, though, it was going to be okay.  Percy needed a doctor, and gold-flecked girl said he was as good as one.  

“She needs to be here.  Just in case.”  The voice continued, as one half of a conversation, as feet pattered a slow track across the empty, meaningless space to Percy’s side.  As he was starting to remember that he couldn’t die if no-named-voice was here.  Just in case of what, then?

“I don’t know, maybe.  Look, he’s twitching.  Call me back later, after you’ve found Annabeth, will you Praetor?”  

There was a pause in which Percy discovered that the name—Annabeth—made him feel even more disconcerted.  

“No.  He didn’t, and _you owe him_ , much more than you recall, Praetor.”  Pause.  “Thanks, but no thanks.  And, thanks for this.”

There was a beep.  The darkness must have mistaken it for a starting gun, because it came forward again.  

 

The next time Percy regained consciousness, all the voices got faces. 

Nico fiddled with rigged up, dangerous looking needles and watched Percy with a fixed, dogged determination.  

Leo flipped a wrench in the air—one foot, two feet, a yard—and caught it again, eyes darting between Percy’s eyes and the metallic shell that had been affixed around his arm.  

Or, the rough shape of an arm.  Percy was still on some serious drugs. 

He knew the room was mainly concrete, anyway.  He felt the water beneath him and realized they had found a back room on a coast-side building, with a close underground water shelf.  

It was a good place.  

“What happened?”  Percy asked, when he’d built up enough mind power to speak.  Those were some _serious_ drugs. 

“You turned down Oegathis’s offer.  He, uh, stopped the process.”

“So…” 

“So you’re left with what you’ve got.”  Leo said, chipper.  He may have seemed lighthearted, but there was something dark in his eyes.  

“What’s that?”  Percy tried to get a look at his arm, but the metal was in the way.  Thus far, he didn’t have the strength to move anything.  “What do i have?”  

“More than you started with.”  Nico said brusquely.  

“That’s leaves a lot of room.”  Percy met his eyes and knew there wasn’t another answer, yet.  “Where are we?”  

“Tennis Street, 108c.  It’s empty.”  Nico sat down on the bed near Percy’s feet. 

Percy sat for a moment.  He still couldn’t move his arms enough to get a hand on his arm, and he’d need to get Leo’s wrench first, anyway.  He licked his lips. 

“. . .Oegathis?”  If there was something that needed to be dealt with, if Oegathis would be mad that Percy didn’t complete the deal, if some other demigod—one of his ‘Children of the Barricades’—went there…

“Accident.”  Nico met Leo’s eyes over Percy’s knees.  

“Building burnt down.  Oegathis skipped town, no clue where he went.”  Leo flipped the wrench again.  He met Percy’s eyes defiantly. 

In the past, Percy might have protested to arson in this case.  

Now, Percy nodded and watched the wrench.  He could deal with that and the swirl of emotions later.   

 

“I want to see.” 

“I don’t think you do.” Nico said back.  

“I do.”  

“Wait till Annabeth’s here.”  

“When’s that gonna be?” 

Nico opened his mouth and closed it again, then, “I don’t know.”  

“Then no.”  

 

The wrench kept flaring a rainbow color as Leo worked.  Percy remembered, back when Leo was still getting used to it, how Leo would accidentally heat his tools red-hot when he got nervous.  Anymore they only got hot enough for a shimmer of heat rising off the silver surface. 

The last bolt hit the bed with no sound.  Anticlimactic.  

Leo grabbed both geared pieces in each hand and twisted, pulling it off.  

The breath caught in Percy’s chest as he inhaled, looking down towards his left arm.  

The sense of deja vu was not lost on him. 

‘ _Bones.’_

 

It was odd, seeing his arm on the paling, washed out quilt.  The seam of his shoulder rose like a mountain range to meet his shoulder bone, hinged by nothing but air and magic.  

That bone—stark ivory, hollow-feeling when he tapped it—ran straight towards his elbow, where it met it’s brother bones in another joint of magic.  

Those two ran parallel to his wrist and ended at a half a dozen bones—small, irregularly shaped ones, that clustered between his arm and five, thin bones that flared out like a shovel, before bumping straight into a handful (ha. ha. ha.) of finger bones, still marching the straight path flesh-and-bone fingers would have run.  

Percy stuck two fingers between the bones Nico identified as his radius and his ulna.  

He tried to grab the dime-sized bone that was his lunate, but it was affixed there, held in a grip of Oegathis’s unfinished work.  

He clenched his hand into a fist and heard the clacking of bone on bone, and felt the slide as two surfaces met and neither yielded.  

He threw up again. 

 

That night, the phantom pain—and real pain—kept him from sleep.  

And he spent the whole night thinking.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Woohoo! I apologize for the long break, because this was supposed to be up before August. 
> 
> Part Two of this story will be started before the end of August. Summer’s over, so i return to my normal writing schedule. The epilogue/prequel of part two will be up by the end of the week. 
> 
> Like this work? Say something. 
> 
> Thanks for reading. 
> 
> Tobi.


	28. Epilogue- -Likewise.

Epilogue—Likewise.

_Previously: He clenched his hand into a fist and heard the clacking of bone on bone, and felt the slide as two surfaces met and neither yielded._

_He threw up again. . ._

_That night, the phantom pain—and real pain—kept him from sleep._

_And he spent the whole night thinking._

 

One month saw a lot of throwing up, a lot of visits from a few, regular people, and a lot more thinking.  

Percy was a serious barfer/thinker, Nico noted.  Some people were like that.  It was like existential crisis itself made them sick.  

When he finally got word to Annabeth of what happened, she turned up at the door to the bunker area—scratched face, twigs in her hair, and one eyebrow nearly burnt off.  She looked young, too—the youngest he’d ever seen her.  She’d always seemed strong to him—implacable, unmovable.  It’d been a inside joke between him and himself that she looked like the statue of her mother, the Athena Parthenos.  Both powerful and untouchable.  

But here she looked small and terrified, about how she would have looked when she was younger and first dipping her toes in the ‘real’ world of demigodliness.  

She brushed a curl behind her ear, grey eyes fixed on Percy’s bone arm, flopped beside him on the quilt on the ground.  It looked ethereal and creepy in the half-dark, but the fingers kept twitching as he slept.  

Detached looking.  

Annabeth carefully lowered her backpack to the corner and asked, “Is he going to be okay?”  

Nico, at a loss of a word or a saying or even a facial expression—this bridge of loss and shared experiences between them was too much of a language barrier—shrugged.  

“Is he ever?”  

Annabeth reached up and tangled a hand into his hair (it was long, he needed a haircut, but somehow things kept getting prioritized higher) and tugged him down. 

She pressed a kiss to his forehead.  

Soothing, familiar, protective.  Deja vu.    

Detached. 

“No.”  She kicked off her shoes and smoothed his hair back down, before crawling down to curl up behind Percy on the floor.  She touched a fingertip to Percy’s wrist bones, pebbled in a mosaic on the blanket on the ground, like reminding herself that it was a reality now. 

Detached.  

“No, he isn’t.”  She said again, quietly.  “None of us are, are we, Nico di Angelo?”  

It was rhetorical (or so he hoped), so he didn't answer.  He just slid down the wall and leaned back into the corner, and pretended he was somewhere where he couldn’t hear the breathing of two people he didn’t want to be attached to, but was, and slept. 

Detached—  

Not really—

But that was okay. 

“Nico?”  Annabeth sounded tired.  

“Yeah?”  

“He still drools in his sleep.” 

“Yeah.”  

“You need a haircut.”  

“Yeah.”  

 

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get on.”  

Chiron’s voice was low and warning, a strong contrast to the way he looked. 

Ridiculous. 

Chiron (out of his wheelchair and in his full, half-pony glory) stood in bright, glimmering armor, with a pool noodle wrapped around his waist.  

Trailing from a harness studded with various flower stickers was a bright chariot.  

In the chariot was a low-seated lawn chair, and in the chair was a small, pudgy man with a Diet Coke in each hand and a leopard-print shirt.  

Mr. D.  

Ridiculous.  

In Mr. D’s hand was a spear with a snake skin dangling off the tip.  

“We need you, Peter Johnson.”  Dionysus declared with all the import a camp director could muster.  Which was apparently not a lot.  “And you, di Ablo.”

“Do we know what’s good for us, di Ablo?”  Percy turned to consult Nico.  His skeletal fingers and his flesh ones tapped the backpack straps.  

“No we don’t, Mr. Johnson.”  Nico pulled out both his swords enough that he could pull them at a moment’s notice.  The black and the bone contrasted as sharply as Chiron’s dress code.  

“We’re coming.”  Percy clambered up onto Chiron’s back with Nico on his heels.  “What’s the problem?”  

“Olympus is under attack.”  

“Again.”  Mr. D added from the back, from around a soda can.  

“. . .and?”  Nico asked.  

Why, why, why was it always _them_?  With the gods’ track record, there were surely a truckload of kids elsewhere.  

“And Percy’s got the best track record for saving Olympus.”  Chiron stamped his hooves twice.  “Hold on to the noodle.  We have a long ride ahead of us.  And boys,”  Chiron turned to look at them, “it’s good to see you.”  

“Likewise.”  Percy smiled dangerously.  Like a junkie with a fix, Percy Jackson had a quest (or something close).  

Ridiculous. 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II will be starting soon. Thank you to everyone who read this work, and I hope to see you in a few. 
> 
> Tobi.


End file.
